


Blackgate Island

by Iben



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-14
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-12 20:35:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3354413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iben/pseuds/Iben
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is sent to prison, and is forced to adjust to a different kind of society.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is originally an idea I had over three years ago for an original fantasy story, which I never got around to writing. I decided to throw out the fantasy, and write it as a Bane/John Blake story instead. I was also a bit inspired by the movie Lawless, which I can recommend, because it's a great movie!

Being woken by the alarm on my mobile phone. Taking a shower. Missing the bus. Nipping into Starbucks for a cup of coffee to escape the rain. Waiting in line at the supermarket. Eating cereal. Buying a pair of jeans. Watching a movie. Jerking off to Internet porn. Cramming for exams. Kissing a girl. Catching the bus. Shooting some hoops. Ordering pizza. Going to the library. Sleeping with a girl. Eating ice-cream. Turning on a light-switch.

I didn't know how much it was possible to miss these things. I didn't realize they were extraordinary, until I was never going to do either one of them ever again.

**

There were people waiting at the dock, a short distance away. I glanced back over my shoulder, the guards were standing there by the ship, faces stony, rifles trained on us, and we didn't have any choice but to keep going. Walking the length of the pier was the longest walk of my life, each step more reluctant than the one before. There were a couple of large, weather-beaten structures, warehouses, and I kept my eyes fixed on the peeling paint. 

Blackgate Island. The end of the line. Hell on earth. I felt sick and regret, worse than any I had ever experienced before, washed over me. 

“No, no, no...” A young man, probably about my age, broke down in sobs, his face contorting. “I can't... I can't...” 

I wanted to tell him to shut up, didn't want to be reminded of what I felt myself and was trying my hardest to hold back. Without warning he turned around, walked back towards the guards and the ship. “Take me back! Please, just take me back...”

A few in the group, I among them, slowed down.

“Don't take another step!” one of the guards yelled. 

There was a sign there on the pier, we had just walked past it so I could read it. 

'No prisoners allowed beyond this point while ships are docked. Transgressors will be fired upon.'

“Please, I can't be here!”

“Turn back or we will fire!”

The guy stopped, but he didn't turn back; he just stood there, his shoulders shaking. No prisoners allowed. It was an invisible line and the transformation within me couldn't be seen, but I could feel the effect – I wasn't sure I dared cross it, even for a few seconds, to get him.

“Hey, come back here!” I shouted.

“Keep walking!” a guard yelled. 

I hesitated a short moment, but eventually the guy turned around and started walking in our direction again, his shoulders slumped, even his gait showing defeat. I turned my gaze away, hoping I didn't have the same desolated look on my face, even though I sure as hell felt it. 

The people waiting at the docks were other prisoners. There were no guards here – the prison was a remote island, a small continent with no way off, populated by criminals who had been sent here to rot, or do whatever the hell they liked, isolated for the sake of the rest of mankind. 

As soon as we, the new arrivals, reached the mainland chaos broke out. People were being shoved, I wasn't sure who was doing the shoving. I was shocked to see that one of the men waiting there was carrying a rifle, in plain sight of the guards over by the ship. I heard someone say something about hard-workers and I tried to make out who had said that, but someone grabbed me by the arm and I stumbled. 

“Hey there...” The man who had grabbed me had a smirk on his face and terrible breath. 

I pulled my arm loose and took a step back.

He followed. “Are you a good Christian?” 

I didn't understand the question. I backed into someone else and turned my head. When I looked back, bad-breath was right up in my face.

“Step back, Hobb.” Another man stepped in, next to the one in front of me. 

“You greedy bastard” bad-breath said. 

“Run along.”

There was a staring contest that lasted for only a few seconds, and then the man with the smelly breath walked off. 

“Sorry about that. Not all of us are completely uncivilized.” 

I didn't know what to say. The man standing in front of me had broad shoulders, brown hair and a short beard. He looked to be in his thirties or early forties. 

“Bruce Wayne” he said and held out his hand. He was smiling. A friendly smile, as if he was an ordinary man, and this was an ordinary place and I was not sweating like a pig, panicky and confused.

Hesitantly I shook his hand. “John Blake” I said. 

“Nice to meet you.”

Another guy was standing behind him, a rifle over one shoulder. 

“I guess this must all be pretty overwhelming” Wayne said. “Don't worry, it'll get better.” He smiled a bit, a sympathetic look on his face. “I can give you a ride into town, if you like.”

A couple of people had already started walking, following the road between the warehouses. I hadn't expected there to be a town at all. I hadn't expected a friendly greeting party either. Wayne seemed genuinely friendly, and he spoke English – which was more than you could say about everyone on the ship.

“It's a long walk” he said, smiling again. 

I nodded. “Thanks.”

“I'll just see if anyone else need any help.” He nodded reassuringly at me. 

I glanced at the man with the rifle, but he was looking in another direction. After only a short moment Wayne returned, and the guy who had started crying on the pier was with him. 

“You know each other?” he asked and I shook my head. I hadn't seen the guy before we got off the ship, he must have been in another cabin. 

“John” I introduced myself.

“Dennis” he said, but he kept his gaze down. 

“I'm parked over here” Wayne said. 

He had a car; it was old but seemed well taken care of, the paint a shiny gray, although red dirt stained the bumper and tires. No license plate.

The dirt road was lined with trees on both sides. Then a meadow. Then a field of wheat. The sun was shining from a clear-blue sky. I was sweaty, my shirt sticking to my back, and it all felt unreal, the scenery outside the car windows mockingly picturesque and the felon in the front-seat conversing in an easy-going manner.

“Most people grow their own food. We are mostly self-sufficient here. Except for a few things, like gas and some other products, which we import.”

“How big is the island?” I asked.

“Well, there are a couple of small settlements, but only one town, and then its mostly farmland.”

I couldn't get my head around it. Import? How? This was a prison, but he was talking about it as if it was a country. 

When we reached the town I was thrown by how normal it looked. And yet completely different. There were no bars on any of the doors or windows, but the simple brick or wooden houses were old-fashioned. The streets were unpaved and the few cars I saw were from different decades. One house had a sign above the door that simply said “Things For Sale”, hand-painted and worn, and a couple of men were sitting on the front-porch, watching the mostly deserted street. 

“Here we are” Wayne said when we stopped. “Come on in.”

Dennis and I followed him up a few steps to a porch that ran the length of the house, larger than most of the others I could see on the street. I wasn't sure exactly what I had expected. I had thought the island would be nothing more than a bare rock, I had thought maybe I'd fight for my life, had thought it would be violence and filth and despair the second I got off the ship. I hadn't expected this.

I had to blink a few times when we stepped through the door, the dimness inside a stark contrast to the blinding sunlight on the street. It was a large room, a bar ran along one wall and tables and chairs were arranged across the floor, there was a piano, and a wide staircase led up to a second-story balcony. 

It reminded me of a saloon, like from an old western movie, but there were a few tell-tale signs I hadn't traveled back in time. For instance, a large portion of the glasses on one of the shelves behind the bar counter were the kind that you got at McDonalds; they looked incongruous here.

“Are you hungry?” Wayne asked. 

For a second I felt almost as if I was going to cry, but I pushed it down.

“I don't mean to be ungrateful, or anything” I said. “But why are you helping us?”

Wayne smiled. 

“I stepped off that boat at one time too, and there was someone there to meet me. I'm just passing it on.”

An elderly man came out from a door a little further in. 

“Ah, Master Wayne” he said. “Are these the latest additions to our population?” He had a distinct British accent. He turned his gaze to me and Dennis. I got the sense that this was the man who had been to meet Wayne when he first came here. 

“John and Dennis. This is Alfred.”

Alfred smiled a little. “I'll go whip up something in the kitchen then, shall I?” 

Wayne smiled back and then he turned to me and Dennis again. “I have some business I need to attend to. Alfred will take good care of you, and I'll see you later.”

“Thank you” I said. “For being so kind, and generous.”

Alfred soon came with two plates of food. Egg, bacon, sausages and fried potatoes. My stomach had been in turmoil, from the nausea caused by the constant rolling motion of the waves while I was on the ship and the perpetual anxiety, but after the first tentative bite I wolfed down the food. I hadn't realized I was so hungry. I looked at Dennis across the table. He had the same shell-shocked look on his face I imagined I had. 

After we had eaten, Alfred pointed us in the direction of the toilets. It was a shed out back with two doors. Nearby was a chicken coop. I went into one of the stalls; it didn't smell so nice in there, but the seat, a simple wooden hole in a bench, looked clean enough. 

I waited by the back door for Dennis. When he came out from the other stall he was white-faced. 

“I threw it all up” he said.

I didn't know what to say. I felt overwhelmed too, but he seemed to be worse off. 

“Hang in there” I said. It felt horribly inadequate and false.

“Gentlemen” Alfred said as we stepped inside again. “A bath and then some rest awaits you. This way.”

He showed the way upstairs. From the top of the stairs a corridor went in both directions, lined with doors, all of them closed. Alfred opened one of them.

“Here we are” he said. “The rooms are more or less identical, so either one of you, please...” He gestured at the doorway. 

I looked at Dennis. “You take this one” I said to him. 

He went inside, not saying anything. I followed Alfred a little further down the corridor where he opened another door. 

It wasn't a big room, but it held a bed, a dresser and an old-fashioned bathtub filled with water. The bathtub must have been filled manually, since there was no faucet. It felt almost like being at a hotel, but an uneasy feeling crept up my spine. 

I looked at Alfred. His face didn't give anything away. A benign old man. But he was here, he had to have been sent here for some reason. Then I realized I was here as well, as was Dennis. I couldn't imagine Dennis had committed some heinous, violent crime. 

“Make yourself at home, and get some well-deserved rest” Alfred said. 

“Thank you.”

When he had left I went over to the window. It faced the backyard, I could see the chicken coop. Beyond that was another dirt road, I could see a couple of smaller, wooden houses. I went over to the door again, opened it a sliver and peeked out. The corridor was empty. 

I was exhausted. Even though I didn't feel entirely comfortable doing so, I peeled off my clothes and got in the tub. I washed quickly and then dried myself on the towel that had been left out on the bed. I got dressed again, the clothes feeling even grimier now than before, and then I lay down on the bed. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep. In my head I went over everything, again and again, but it was all a jumble. Maybe Wayne really was a nice guy, trying to repay the kindness once bestowed on him, by helping others. 

**

I did fall asleep, because I woke up and someone was in the room. I got to my feet so fast my head spun. 

“Didn't mean to startle you.”

I stared. The someone standing over by the dresser was a girl. But there weren't supposed to be any women here – Blackgate Island was a men's only correctional facility. It took my sleep-addled brain a few seconds to catch up, and catch on. The person standing there wasn't actually a woman, it was a man dressed in women's clothing and rouge smeared across his cheeks, painting them a blushing red. 

He smiled a little. “Pick your jaw up from the floor, will you, sweetie?” he said. 

I didn't know what to say. “Sorry” I managed. I felt embarrassed and slightly ashamed that I did too. 

“I'm Cora. What's your name?”

“John.”

“I'm here to get you some new clothes.” 

“Oh, okay.”

He picked up a stack of clothes he had put on the dresser and handed me them. Unfolding them I felt my face go hot.

“I'm not wearing this” I said. 

Cora, or whatever his real name was, rolled his eyes.

“Just put them on” he said. 

“No. Thanks, but no thanks.”

My clothes may have been filthy, but I didn't want to put on a dress. 

“Put them on, or I will have to tell Wayne that you refused” Cora said. 

A cold shiver ran up my spine. “What do you mean?”

Realization was beginning to dawn in my mind. The layout of the place, the man standing in front of me, Wayne's kindness taking me and Dennis in, seemingly out of the goodness of his heart... 

“I'm not interested in this” I said and took a step towards the door.

“You can't leave” Cora said, his voice as calm as if he had been talking about the weather. 

“The fuck I can't.”

I got as far as the top of the stairs. Then a man showed up, not the same one as at the docks, but this one also carried a rifle. He shook his head.

“Back up, pretty” he said. 

My heart was pounding, my ears were ringing, anger and panic swirling inside.

“Go back to your room, or I'll have to hurt you” the man said. 

He was armed and I wasn't. I could make a run for the stairs, and he could shoot me in the back. 

Cora waited in the room, standing by the dresser just as he had been before. I thought I could see a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

“The more you fight, the worse it'll be” he said. 

I had a sour taste in my mouth. I'd gotten in that car voluntarily. Cora picked up the clothes and held them out to me.

“Pick out a name you like” he said. 

I had to get out of here. I refused to put on the clothes and eventually Cora left. I tried the window. It didn't open. Every time I opened the door I could see the outline of the man by the stairs, rifle and all. 

When the door opened later I was ready, standing right next to it, a candlestick in hand. It wasn't very heavy, but it was the only thing I'd found that I could use. I felt the impact when it hit its target, but it wasn't enough. It was wrenched from my hands and then I was thrown to the floor. I got my hands up to break my fall somewhat, but my shoulder connected with the bed-frame and I winced as pain shot down my arm. 

Wayne was standing above me, bleeding slightly from a shallow gash by his hairline, and the friendly smile from before had vanished, instead the corners of his mouth were pulled down in a furious grimace.

“This is how you repay my generosity?” he said.

“Let me leave.”

He smiled. “No. You're going to be a big-earner. And that's the only reason I don't rip you wide open right now.”

I tried to get up, but he put his foot on my hand. I cried out. 

“You be a good little girl, and this will be beneficial for us both.”

I gasped for breath, the pain of my hand being crushed under his weight shooting up my arm like lightning, blinding me. When he finally removed his foot he spat on me, and then he left. 

I lay there for a moment, cradling my throbbing hand. Eventually I managed to sit up, and I wiped my sleeve over my face. I could move my fingers, nothing was broken. I felt like I was going to throw up. 

I heard voices coming from downstairs. Laughter. Notes from the piano. I sat there, my back against the wall, all through the night, until the sun came up again, light spilling in through the window. When the door opened panic flared inside, but it was only Cora.

He looked at me for a moment, then picked up the dress from where it lay on the bed. 

“Don't make this so fucking difficult” he said. “He'll only beat you, then he'll rape you, and then you may not even be good enough to whore and then you're as good as dead.”

I swallowed. I felt as if I was stuck to the floor, paralyzed. I shouldn't have gotten into his car. 

“Then you probably would have been raped by someone else, somewhere else” Cora said.

I hadn't realized I'd said it out loud. Cora sighed and sat down on the bed.

“I'll explain it to you” he said. “You're thin and pretty. There are no real women here, so the big and strong ones, they're men, and people like you and me, we're women. And if you don't have a husband to protect you, you don't stand a chance.”

I shook my head. 

“There has to be...” I didn't even know what I was going to say. “Work... someone down at the docks said there was work...”

If I could get out of this room, out of this house...

Cora shook his head. “There's no work for us, except this. You'd need a husband to support you. But that doesn't matter now, because you belong to Wayne. So for the last time, put on the dress and pick a name.”

In the end I put on the clothes, mainly out of fear of getting hurt worse than I already had been. It was a simple pair of briefs and the dress had a flowery pattern. I felt so humiliated. 

“Your hair is nice” Cora said, pulling his fingers through my hair. “It'll look good when it grows out.”

“Don't touch me.”

“Get off your high horses. You're in the pit, there's nowhere to go, so just get used to it.”

He left and I sat there, shame and fear gripping me in equal measure. As the sun begun to set, panic started to creep over me again. I hadn't eaten all day and felt light-headed. I had to get out. 

I got down the stairs this time, no one guarding the top of them, but I was intercepted before I could reach the door. I was yanked off balance and fell, back first, to the floor, the impact knocking all air from my lungs.

“Didn't learn your lesson, did you?” It was Wayne, his face a mask of contempt when he looked down at me. He began to work on his belt.

I tried to back away, terror making my stomach clench and my throat constrict. I managed to scramble to my hands and feet, but fell down when the first lash hit my back and I screamed. It burned like fire and felt as if my back split in two. 

I soon gave up trying to get away, the pain making it impossible to move. I couldn't breathe, only curl up in a ball and try to protect my head. I thought it would never end. I thought I'd die there. But eventually it stopped.

“If you're gonna keep being more trouble than you're worth, I'll just kill you and feed you to the pigs” Wayne said. He was breathing hard. “Get this fucking whore out of here!” he roared.

I didn't think I'd be able to move, and I flinched when hands gripped me by the arms.

“Get up” someone whispered. Somehow I got to my feet. It was another so-called woman, who led me to the stairs. His long hair brushed against my arm.

Tears stung my eyes and the anguish was like a beehive inside my chest. I was taken back to the same room as before and I gingerly sat down on the bed. The person who had helped me upstairs wet a cloth and carefully wiped my face. I had hit my nose when I fell face first to the floor and the cloth turned pink. My skin felt as if it was burning up, the pain burrowing deep inside, all over my back and thighs. 

Big, dark eyes met mine. “Don't make him angry. If you're sweet, he can be nice too.”

A small smile.

“I'm Linda.”

“John.”

“You'll need a new name. No one's gonna want to call you 'John'. Not here. I'm sorry.”

“I can't... I can't do this.”

“Yes you can.”

I couldn't. The mere thought turned my insides ice-cold. 

“I'll teach you a few tips and tricks” Linda said. “You have to be sweet, and pretty...”

He took out a box and I turned away, but he just moved to my other side. 

“Don't talk back to a man” he said and began putting stuff on my cheeks with a brush. “And you do what he tells you to do.”

I started crying, I couldn't help it.

“I know you're sad. But it's not all bad.” He picked up the cloth again and used a clean corner to soak up my tears. “We've got each other.”

I had never felt so alone before in my life. 

“Listen, this is important. When you're with a client, you please him. Don't ever touch yourself unless he tells you to. Do you understand?”

I felt sick. My chest felt tight. This couldn't be happening. I couldn't be here. 

“There has to be someplace else to go” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.

Linda's eyes were filled with sympathy. 

“A girl can't be alone here.”

“I'm not a girl!”

“Ssh!” 

Linda glanced at the door, but it remained closed.

“If you're not somebody's wife, this is the best place for you, trust me” he said. 

“Someplace I could hide...”

Linda shook his head. “It doesn't work like that. Wayne is powerful. No one can stand up to him. There's only Bane, but he doesn't run girls. There is no place to go. Do you understand?”

I had been afraid of going to prison, but I hadn't thought it would be like this, that I wouldn't stand a chance. I'd thought I'd be able to at least fight back. I was young and strong, or at least so I had thought. 

I could hear voices coming from downstairs. The place was open for business and my stomach clenched. An endless row of men abusing me, for the rest of my life?

I got to my feet, stumbled because my whole body protested at moving, but I made it to the bathtub, empty of water now, and threw up. Only acrid bile came up, burning my throat.

“Please, help me...” I said.

“I am helping you.”

I slumped against the edge of the tub.

“Have you ever been with a man before?” Linda said. “I can help prepare you, so it doesn't hurt.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. 

“I have to go to the bathroom” I said. 

Linda was quiet for a few seconds. “Okay” he said then. “I'll take you.”

There weren't many patrons yet in the room downstairs. A few guys, all of them terrifying, were sitting at a couple of tables. Wayne was behind the bar and his steely gaze followed me as I and Linda made it down the stairs. Cold-shivers ran across my entire body. Another guy stopped us before we reached the back door.

“We just need to go to the bathroom” Linda said. 

The man glanced over to where Wayne was standing, somewhere behind my back.

“All right” the man said then. “Be quick.”

I hoped, prayed even, that he wouldn't follow us outside, and he didn't. I could hardly believe it. It was dark and hard to see out here now, the only light coming from a torch in a hold on the facade of the house. I opened the door to one of the stalls and then I turned around. Without thinking about it, I planted my fist in Linda's face, as hard as I could, despite that my back felt as if it was going to break into a million pieces, and then I ran.

Past the chicken coop, onto a deserted street. I sprinted between two houses, heading for the darkness behind them. I ran straight into the woods, blindly, falling over and getting up again, over and over. I was certain I could hear voices behind me. Branches whipped me across the face and the copper taste of blood was on my tongue. 

I ran until I couldn't anymore, my body failing me. It was pitch black and my own heartbeats were thunderous in my ears, each breath painful. I lay there on the ground, the smell of dirt in my nose, and the soft undergrowth against my cheek. 

It wasn't cold, not really, but I started shaking. It was a long while before I could move, even though I knew I had to. When I finally could get up I tried to run, but immediately had to slow down to walking. I couldn't see, I had no idea where I was going, and knowing that I could be walking right back to where I had come from, combined with exhaustion, made me sit down on the ground. I tried to search for some kind of cover, but it was too dark. I sat, aching all over, trying not to breathe too loudly, listening. 

**

The night was never ending. In a way I didn't want it to end, but eventually it did. The sun rose slowly; at first there was only a shift in the shadows, then gradually my surroundings were unveiled as a pale light crept through the branches. All I could see were trees, a thick foliage overhead. I was thirsty. I got up and started walking. Maybe I could find a creek. Apart from that I had no plan, no idea of what to do. I tried not to think about how I might have gotten Linda in trouble. The punch I had delivered probably hadn't caused any real damage, but I didn't know what Wayne might have done to him. I thought about Dennis, who most likely was still stuck there, but I tried to push those thoughts away too. 

I couldn't find any water. I knew I couldn't stay in the woods forever either. I had grown up in a city, I knew nothing about how to survive in the wild, and all I had to wear was the degrading dress. I'd starve, I'd probably freeze to death. I had to find other people, but I couldn't risk finding other people. I was scared, and alone, and in despair like I had never been before. 

In the end other people found me. Three of them. They spotted me before I had a chance to hide and I tried to run, but I was too sore and too tired, and they caught me. Panic surged through me and I struggled, but their hands were rough and strong.

“Are you out here by yourself?”

“Let me go!” My voice cracked.

“Shit, she is... Oooh, I'm gonna fuck you so hard you see stars.”

“I'm with Bane.” It was the first thing that popped up in my head.

“No you're not. Bane ain't got no wife.”

“No, I am! I am!”

To my surprise they stopped. They didn't let go of me, but they looked at each other.

“Bane's got a wife?” one of them said. 

“I don't think so. I'm not sure.”

“What if he does?”

I was trying to think, but my mind felt muddled.

“I ain't risking it.”

“Look at her, she looks like shit, she's nobody's wife.”

My knees and hands were scraped, and dirt stained my bare legs and my clothes.

“Touch me and he'll kill you” I said. My heart was beating so hard in my chest it felt as if my ribs were going to crack. 

“All right, let's get her over there. If she is his wife, he'll be glad we returned her. If she isn't, we can have her.”

“Are you drunk? He'll be glad? He'll think we messed with her and kill us. I ain't going over there.”

“No, no, she'll tell him we rescued her, won't you?”

It was disconcerting, hearing them refer to me as 'she', but I nodded. Anything to keep from getting raped. Maybe I could get away somehow, before we could get there, but my heart was sinking. I was never going to make it out of this. I was done for the second I got off the ship. 

“I ain't going to Bane's, no way. You two take her then.”

“Then you don't get to fuck her, in case she is free.”

“Fine, whatever.”

They held me by my arms, one on each side, as they marched me off through the woods. The third guy went on in another direction. I walked like a robot. I wanted to shake off their revolting touch, wanted to break free and run, but my body was barely capable of putting one foot in front of the other, and there were two of them, both bigger and stronger than I. I knew I couldn't do it.

“You're a real pretty one” one of them said, eyeing me.

“Shut up” said the other one. Then neither of them said anything else. We walked until the trees began to thin out, and I could see buildings. Wooden houses. I didn't think I had it in me to panic all over again, but I did. 

Chickens were walking around, pecking at the ground. Apart from them the yard was deserted.

“What now, we're just gonna knock?” one of the men said in a half-whisper.

“Do you have any better ideas?”

They pulled me along, up to the front porch, not as roughly now as before and one of them knocked on the door.

I kept my gaze lowered. I wasn't going to make it; the knowledge settled inside like a cold dagger, making whatever strength I had left bleed out. I was going to get raped, then most likely killed. I was afraid of the pain. I was already in pain and I didn't think I could bear anymore. I knew I couldn't bear being used like that. I realized I was shaking.

The door opened and I raised my head, despite myself. The man standing in the doorway was huge. And he didn't look kind. He didn't say anything, his brow slightly frowned.

“Eh... we found her wandering in the woods” the guy to my right said. “Lost. Is she your wife?”

The man in the doorway, I assumed he was Bane, just looked at him for a second.

“What gave you the idea that she would be?” he said.

“Eh... she said she was.”

It was quiet for a heartbeat. 

“If she isn't” the guy to my left said. “Sorry we bothered you... but we thought maybe you wanted her back. We haven't done anything to her.”

Bane didn't look at me, not that I saw at least, but then he suddenly grabbed me by the arm, pulled me away from the two men holding me and roughly pushed me inside. I lost my balance and would have fallen over if there hadn't been a wall there that I crashed into instead. Bane slammed the door shut. 

I leaned on the wall, for support, still shaking and blood rushing in my ears.

“You're not my wife” Bane said, his voice deep and a little raspy. “Who are you?”

“I came with the ship yesterday, no the day before... I don't know.”

I glanced at him but quickly looked away again. His eyes were dark. 

“Are you one of Wayne's?” he said. 

I shook my head, but I could tell he didn't believe me. I had traded three guys in the woods, for one giant, pissed off guy in a house. There was no way out, I was trapped in a nightmare. I tried to swallow, my throat so dry it hurt.

It was quiet. I was holding my breath, waiting for him to attack me, and I tried to think of how I would put up a fight, kicking and biting and whatever it took. He was looking at me, I could feel the weight of his gaze.

“All right” he finally said. “I'll take you back.”

Something inside me broke then.

“Please don't” I said. 

I could barely think anymore, the stress and pain had somehow stretched me so thin I felt like I would crumble to dust. I felt exposed, as if my skin had been turned inside out. 

I flinched when he suddenly moved, but he turned towards a doorway leading further into the house. 

“Come on” he said.

I thought about making a run for the front door, but he turned his head and I had missed my chance. Tentatively I followed.

It was a kitchen – an old-fashioned wood stove and a counter lined one wall, a couple of cupboards, and there was a table with a paraffin lamp hanging from the ceiling above it. It was lighter in here than in the hallway, a couple of windows letting in the light and the backdoor was open.

On the counter was a jug of water, and Bane followed my gaze to it. Not saying anything he took a cup, filled it and held it out to me. I drank it all in just a few big gulps, the taste sweet and rich as it wet my parched throat and tongue, which had felt swollen and glued to the roof of my mouth. 

When I had finished I looked at him. He had short-cropped, light brown hair, and stubble covered his jaw, all the way down to his throat. It was difficult to estimate his age, maybe he was in his early thirties. He was big, tall and the width of his shoulders imposing, his arms the size of my legs. It was intimidating and I had never before felt so conscious of being a skinny guy. 

“You got a name?” he asked.

“John.”

He 'hmm-ed' a little at that. 

“Let's call you Anna” he said after a few seconds. “You stay and be my wife, you'll do what I tell you to do.”

The thought was repulsive, degrading and horrifying, but if I refused he'd take me back to Wayne and the whorehouse. Hating myself, I nodded. 

He seemed satisfied by that.

“Go get cleaned up” he said. He made a gesture towards the doorway. My legs felt odd, as if they weren't really mine, as I took a few steps. To the right in the hallway, opposite a staircase that led to an upper floor, was a door and behind it was a small bathroom. There was no toilet, but a bathtub and a cupboard that held a washbowl and pitcher. 

I glanced over my shoulder but Bane hadn't followed me inside. I pulled the door shut, although there was no lock or even a hook to hasp. I felt stiff and clumsy as I poured some water into the bowl and washed off my face, then my arms and legs. The water turned pink and then brown as blood and dirt came off my skin. The palms of my hands burned where I had grazed the skin off when I fell. I had a cut on my knee, but it wasn't deep. 

I stayed in there a few minutes after I had finished washing. I was scared to go back out, but eventually I did.

Bane was sitting by the table in the kitchen, but rose when he saw me.

“Throw out the water” he said. 

I turned back and got the washbowl. 

“Where?” I asked and he frowned.

“Out the door” he said. 

I felt so strange, as if I was acting in a play, when I walked over to the edge of the porch and emptied the bowl on the ground. The yard was empty, even of chickens now. I could run, but chances were I'd run in to men like the ones I had already, or Wayne would find me. He could find me here as well, but I remembered what Linda had said, Bane could stand up to Wayne. I wondered if I was choosing the better of two evils, but there really wasn't any way to tell, except at least this didn't seem to be a brothel. 

When I returned inside Bane was waiting for me and couldn't make myself look at him. 

“Upstairs” he said. I felt sick and as if I was walking in a fog, my heartbeat loud in my ears, as I went up the stairs. They ended in an upstairs alcove, a bookshelf against one wall, a pile of boxes by the other, and three doors. 

I had stopped, but continued when Bane pushed me forward, moving away from his touch between my shoulder-blades, not only because my back still hurt after the beating. 

A bedroom. My stomach clenched.

“Stay here” he said and then he closed the door. I heard the lock click and I didn't even know why, I had thought something much worse was going to happen, but I threw myself at the door and pounded on it.

There was no reply and after only a short moment I stopped. I was panting. Everything hurt. I turned around and took in the room. There was a bed, not quite a double but not a single either, and a nightstand next to it, a candlestick and a book on top of it. By the opposite wall was a chest of drawers. The place was less adorned than the room at Wayne's place, no wall-paper and no curtains. I went over to the window and I could see the latch, it would open, but apart from being pretty high up, I was almost more scared of leaving than staying. 

I was pretty sure I was in Bane's own bedroom and I refused to touch the bed. I sat down on the floor in one corner, my back against the wall and pulled my knees up. I stretched the hated garment as far down as it would go over my bare legs. 

I didn't know how much time had passed when I heard movement outside the door and then it opened. Bane stood there, filling the doorway and I hated how fucking small and helpless I felt. This cowering mess wasn't me. 

“Go and make dinner” he said. 

Reluctantly I got to my feet. I didn't want to, I had rather been left alone in that room, but I didn't dare refuse. 

I had no idea what to do and Bane's presence unsettled me. I had never worked a wood stove before and fumbled with the kindling, before Bane simply cut in and got the fire going, an impatient air about him. 

I'd had my own place, a small apartment with a kitchenette and I had fixed my own dinners, but here I was at a loss. I felt stiff, unable to think and I wanted to cry, which only made me feel more humiliated. 

Bane took out different things from the cupboards and there was meat on a chopping-board on the counter, chicken by the look of it. I knew how to fry a couple of chicken breasts, but all I could think of was what would happen next, when he thought I was done playing wife in the kitchen and would make me go upstairs again. 

“You don't know how to cook?” he said eventually, when I had tried to peel potatoes with fumbling fingers for a while.

“Yes, I do” I replied. 

He didn't say anything else, just went into the next room, which made it slightly easier to complete the task of making dinner, something that never before had made me feel degraded like it did now. 

I couldn't eat when I was sitting at the table a little later. He sat across from me.

“Eat” he said.

“I can't.”

“Yes you can.”

I managed a few small pieces of potato, but they grew in my mouth and I felt even queasier than before. 

Eventually he got up and snatched the plate from the table in front of me. 

I remained at the table. I didn't know where he'd gone, if he had gone out, or what I was supposed to do now. I felt as if I wasn't really there. 

I wasn't really there a while later either, when he came back and ordered me upstairs. It was the same room as I had been in before, but now Bane looked at me from across the bed. He pulled off his shirt and his pants. I looked away. 

He got into bed and I stood there, unable to make myself move. I couldn't do this. I could feel myself sway, and I knew I would be lucky if I made it downstairs without falling and breaking my neck. He'd catch up, or I'd spend another night in the woods only to be attacked again tomorrow. 

“Get into bed” he said, sounding impatient.

Gingerly I lay down on top of the cover, as far away from him as possible, revulsion filling every cell of my body. He'd be able to do whatever he pleased with me, I was too worn out to put up much of a fight. I waited, defeat weighing me down.

I lay there, tense and hyper-aware of my own quick heartbeats. I could hear his breaths, slow and regular, but I didn't know if he was asleep. I was awake the whole night, or at least I thought I was. He didn't touch me.


	2. Chapter 2

Bane got up at the first light of dawn falling through the window. I didn't move until he told me to get up. I had to pee.

“Where's the toilet?” I asked. 

“Out back.”

It was another outhouse, not that different from the one I had visited at Wayne's place, except this one only had one door and was wall to wall with a shed. There were a couple of other sheds and a barn. The woods lay beyond it, but I could feel the lack of sleep clinging to my muscles, weighing me down, and my back ached, hurting every time I moved. 

When I got back into the kitchen Bane had gotten the fire started in the wood stove and was filling a kettle with water from the jug.

“Go and fetch some eggs” he said. “And let the chickens out.”

I did as I was told. The eggs had different colored shells and they were grimy, not washed clean like they probably were when you bought them in a store. Bane took the eggs from me when I came back in and he made breakfast while I stood silently by the wall. 

He looked at me when handing me a plate and I could tell what was in that look; I better not refuse to eat again. The food did go down a little easier, my hunger finally getting the better of me. It wasn't coffee or tea in the kettle, but something else that tasted mildly of apples, landing warmly in my stomach. 

“Do you know how to bake bread?” he asked.

I shook my head, no point in lying. When I had finished eating he glanced at me over the top of his cup. 

“There's a razor in the bathroom” he said. 

For a second I was bewildered and alarmed, I thought he told me to go kill myself, before I realized he was telling me to shave. Humiliated I turned my gaze down.

But I did it. I found a razor and soap in the cupboard, as well as a small mirror that I could prop up next to the washbowl. I looked like hell. There were a few cuts on my face and when I had finished shaving, which had been difficult with the unfamiliar tools, I inspected my back. Long blue-black lines covered what I could see of it and I was lucky the skin hadn't broke. I didn't feel particularly lucky, though. 

In the kitchen Bane was talking to someone at the back door. I couldn't see who, but when Bane turned to me I got a glimpse of a man with a short, dark beard out in the yard. He gave me a curious look before glancing away.

Bane came over to me, told me how to make bread and I struggled to remember it.

“Don't go anywhere” he said before he left. 

After a few seconds I walked over to the door and peeked out. I didn't see him, or that other man, anywhere. Had he left me here by myself? I was astounded, but then it began to sink in. He didn't care, because he knew that which Linda had tried to tell me – it wasn't safe for me to go anywhere on my own. I felt a nervous flutter. Was I safe here, alone? My line of thinking shook me. I was a lot safer with Bane out doing whatever it was he did. 

I didn't bake, instead I searched the house, quickly and with fumbling hands. I thought maybe he'd have some weapons, like Wayne's men had, but I found absolutely nothing. He was a fucking farmer, or something. Had I misheard Linda? Maybe he had said some other name, but then I remembered the men who had caught me in the woods – they'd been scared of Bane. 

He got back later in the afternoon. His gaze went to the kitchen counter, no doubt taking in the non-existent traces of baking. Then he looked at me, his face stern. I glared back.

“I'm not your slave” I said. 

I had misjudged the situation, misjudged him. He backhanded me so hard I flew into the wall, hitting the same shoulder I had smashed into the bed-frame just a few days earlier. 

“You do what I tell you to do” he said. He didn't raise his voice, but it was grim, threatening. “That's the way it works.”

His eyes were fixed on mine, staring me down. 

“I don't want to beat you.”

I looked down. My cheek stung. It was quiet for a short moment and then he took a step back.

“I'll keep you clothed and fed” he said, not sounding as harsh now. “And look out for you.”

I glanced up and he looked back at me for a second, then he turned his gaze away.

“Get started on dinner” he said. 

“I don't know what to make” I said. 

I was afraid he'd get angry again, but he just sighed. “There's things in the pantry. You said you could cook.”

I nodded. I could. I was going to. I walked over to the pantry, it was in the corner, next to the backdoor. He left me alone. I didn't know what all the things were, none of them were bought at a supermarket, but I used my nose. 

The next couple of days passed in much the same way. He told me what chores to do before going out in the morning, and I did them. At night I slept lightly and fitfully next to him, but he didn't touch me, or hit me. 

He had a car. I saw it through the window, and I saw a couple of other men now and then, but none of them came into the house and I didn't venture out other than to go to the outhouse or the chicken coop. 

I heard the car in the yard in the afternoon. I had been sitting at the kitchen table, not doing anything since I had finished the chores he'd instructed me to do, but scrambled to my feet before he came through the door. 

He handed me a bundle of what I assumed were clothes. 

“You should bathe” he said. 

Maybe I smelled, I didn't know, or care. 

“I'll help you bring in the water” he said. 

There was a well close to the edge of the forest. I hadn't seen it before, because water had just materialized in the pitcher in the bathroom and the jugs in the kitchen, but of course that was because he'd gone and fetched it. 

“How deep is it?” I asked, peering down into the darkness. I didn't want to talk to him, but I had been alone all day and hadn't heard anything except for the inside of my own head. 

“Deep enough.” 

It took a couple of buckets before the bathtub was filled, and some of the water had gone on the stove first to get warm. I was worried he wasn't going to leave me alone in the bathroom, but he did. 

I was quick about washing, not comfortable being naked when he was just on the other side of the door, but then I didn't want to get dressed either. The garments he had brought me were more dresses, two of them, both of them blue but in different shades, simple, with small wooden buttons down the front. The undergarments were the same kind as the ones I had. 

The flowery dress I'd gotten at the brothel wasn't a better choice, and I had no other options, so I put on one of the new ones. Did it feel like this for women? I couldn't imagine it did, it was different. I wasn't a woman, I felt dressed up like a clown, mocked and demeaned. 

The door was opened suddenly and I turned around. 

“Are you done in here?” Bane asked. 

“Yes.” I quickly gathered up everything and walked past him, not wanting to think about that he could just as well have opened the door before I had gotten dressed. I had never been shy like that before, not in locker rooms or when getting changed in front of friends. It wasn't the same as the slight awkwardness of being naked in front of a girl for the first time either – there was no resemblance. In none of those situations did I expect to get assaulted. 

I didn't know why he hadn't done anything. There had been plenty of opportunity, I had been alone with him in the house for the last couple of days. Maybe he wasn't interested. Maybe, hopefully, he was content getting his food cooked for him, his house tidied and the chicken coop cleaned out. 

I put another pot of water on the stove, for boiling potatoes, and it wasn't until I was halfway through peeling them I realized Bane was using the same bathwater as I had. That was mildly disgusting, and I was grateful I'd been allowed to go first. 

We had just finished eating when there was a knock on the front door. I looked at Bane across the table. The kitchen was lit by the paraffin lamp above the table, outside the windows it was dark. Bane didn't look alarmed, his expression as unreadable as always. He got up and went to the door, while I stayed in the kitchen. I was afraid it would be Wayne, demanding to have me back.

I heard voices, Bane's low rumble and someone else. I got up from the table when Bane came back, another man following him. He was older, not big like Bane, but actually rather slight; he did however have a mustache and if I had things figured out correctly, the men who were regarded as men around here liked their facial hair, to signal just that. 

His eyes fell on me for a second.

“I heard you'd gotten yourself a... prison-wife” the man said. 

Bane 'hmm-ed'. The man looked at me.

“What's your name?” he asked.

I glanced at Bane for a second. “Anna” I said then, burning with shame. I hated it, hated the name, hated standing there, in the silly clothes, being seen. 

The man nodded a little and didn't say anything for a short moment. “I'm Jim Gordon” he said then. “I'm a Reverend at the church.”

I hadn't known there was a church, didn't know much of anything. Bane took the empty plates from the table and put them on the counter.

“You hungry?” he asked the Reverend.

“No, no, I'm good, thanks.”

Bane turned to me. “Make some tea” he said. 

The dried apple and herbs, I had asked what it was, was a substitute for tea. I put the kettle on. 

“You came here on the latest ship?” the Reverend asked me.

“Yes.”

“American?”

I nodded. “From Gotham” I said, and he smiled a little.

“I grew up not far from there, actually” he said. 

He looked at Bane and there seemed to be something going on there, something I didn't grasp, but Bane calmly met his gaze. 

I made the tea. The Reverend stayed only a short while, talking a little in a friendly manner, but not so much he filled up the silences. Bane was a taciturn man, and I didn't know what to say. When he left I took the cups and washed up. Bane came back to the kitchen.

“You don't talk to men” he said. “Except the Reverend.”

I looked at him and he looked back at me. I hated him. “Fine” I said, turning back to the dishes. 

I could feel his gaze on me, my neck prickled, but eventually he went away. 

I was tired, from not sleeping well and constantly being on edge. Bane hadn't said anything about me going to bed with my clothes on the previous nights, but now he did. I tried to ignore the uneasiness, bordering on dread, that blossomed in the pit of my stomach, and sat down on the edge of the bed, my back to him, before pulling the dress over my head. Then I quickly got in under the cover.

“Wayne did that?” he asked.

He had seen the bruises on my back.

“Yes” I said staring at the wall. You hit me too, I thought scathingly. 

He didn't say anything else. The candle burned on the nightstand on the other side of the bed. Bane was reading. I found it odd that he did, it seemed too civilized for this place, for him. But I was grateful he kept to his book, rather than wanting to do something to me. 

“You need to do the laundry” he said the next morning. 

After breakfast I collected the clothes, his and mine, from the bedroom and the bedclothes, and went downstairs again. 

“Where do I wash them?” I asked. 

“The river, this time of year.”

I startled as he reached out to the bundle of clothes I had in my arms. He pulled out the flowery dress. I looked at him and he looked back. 

“Which way is it?” I asked.

He stepped out through the backdoor and I followed. 

“Through there” he said, pointing at the trees beyond the barn. “You walk straight ahead, you'll see a path.”

“Is it far?”

“No.”

He didn't give me the flowery dress back. I didn't care, I didn't want it, but I disliked the suggestion that there was nothing that wasn't his decision, and his alone. 

I found the path, although it was barely discernible from the rest of the undergrowth. It made me feel uneasy to be out there, so far from the house, on my own, and I resented how scared I had become. 

I could hear the soft lapping sound of water before I could see the river, but then I stopped just before I reached the bank. There were people down there, three of them, crouching by the waterline. My heart sped up in my chest.

I had decided to go back when one of them turned around and spotted me. He raised a hand and waved, smiling.

“Hi.” 

They were wearing dresses, all three. It didn't do much to ease my mind. That was just clothes, they weren't women any more than I was, and since they were here, at this island, they were criminals. Also just like me. It was strange how I had almost managed to forget that. 

I ambled down the slope towards the shore. 

“Hi” one of them said. “I haven't seen you before.” He was pretty, even I could see it, he looked very much like a girl and had enormous blue eyes, but his voice gave it away – it was deep and definitely a man's. 

The other two looked at me as well.

“What's your name?” the pretty one asked.

I hesitated. 

“Just give us your girl-name, no one cares about the other one.”

“Anna.” I felt a distinct aversion to saying it. It wasn't me. 

“I'm Jenny” the pretty one said. “This is Beatrice and Audrey.”

Beatrice was young, probably about my age, both Audrey and Jenny looked like they were older, in their thirties or even forties. 

“And who's your husband?” Jenny asked.

“Bane.” I had to force myself to say it, just like my so-called name.

“Really?” Jenny raised an eyebrow. He smiled a little. “You're new around here?”

I nodded. They showed me how to do the laundry. It was a hell of a lot more work than putting a load in a machine. Thinking about home, even about the crappy washing machine that clanged and banged and didn't work half the time, in the basement of my building, hurt too much, and I pushed the thoughts away. 

“Is it true Bane's got the cut-off balls of everyone he's killed in a jar?” Beatrice said. He had a slight accent, maybe French.

I stared at him, then I shook my head. I hadn't seen anything like that in the house at least. A cold-shiver ran down my back all the same.

“Why would he?” Jenny said, making the notion seem slightly more ridiculous.

“It's just what I heard” Beatrice said. “That he did that to Truman.”

“You're an idiot” Jenny said. “Truman isn't even dead.”

“He could still be without his balls” Beatrice said. 

Jenny laughed. “No, he'd probably have bled to death if he got his balls cut off” he said then. 

I scrubbed at one of Bane's shirts.

“You get any booze?” Beatrice asked and looked at me.

“No. Why?”

“Bane controls the booze. And guns. Booze and guns.”

“Where can you get guns around here?”

“From Bane” Audrey said and they all laughed. 

“How?” 

Jenny glanced at me. “It's better not to ask things like that” he said. “For people like us.”

I hated that I was somehow included in this group of people I didn't want to be a part of, that I didn't feel a part of. Still, they were the nicest people I had met thus far. They talked about other things, food and stories they'd heard, not violent ones, a leaking roof and troublesome chickens, and they laughed. It felt so bizarre to hear, out of place and like something I had forgotten.

When the laundry was done and we got up Jenny turned to me. 

“I've got an ointment, if you're sore...” he said, lowering his voice a little, but I was sure the others could hear.

I felt my face go hot. He assumed, of course they all assumed. I shook my head and looked away. 

“Okay” he said. “See you next week?”

Dumbly I nodded. I took my wet laundry and walked back to the house. Bane wasn't there when I got back; the car was gone. There was a clothes line tied between two of the sheds and I hung the laundry there, before heading back inside. It was a bit strange that the house was left unlocked, on an island populated by criminals, but then again if the stories about Bane were of the kind Beatrice had heard, maybe no one dared rob him. 

I made myself a cup of tea. Bane hadn't said I wasn't allowed to take things from the pantry when he wasn't home. I sat at the kitchen table, staring out the window. After a little while it started raining and it took a moment before I remembered the laundry and I ran outside. 

The clothes could hang over the back of the kitchen chairs, but the bed clothes were more difficult to find a place for. I ended up hanging them over the banister leading up the stairs and over the door to the bathroom. It kept on raining, more and more, beating against the roof and the windows. 

When Bane got home it was pouring outside as if someone had turned a tap. The wind made the windowpanes rattle in their frames and it had gotten chilly.

“Why haven't you gotten a fire going?” he asked. 

I had, in the wood stove, because I was going to make dinner, but he meant in the sitting room, where there was a fireplace. 

“I didn't know how” I said. I followed him in there. It wasn't a very big room and I guessed it wasn't used much. The furniture was old – a sofa with wooden armrests and worn, faded fabric covering the seat and back, a chair that had been visibly mended where one leg must have broken off and a table. There was a clutter of things stacked away and kept on the floors along the walls. I had sifted through some of it, when I was searching for a weapon or anything else I could use. Bane was a bit of hoarder. 

I watched him build the fire. It looked easy enough. He went upstairs, probably to change his soaked clothes, and I went back to the kitchen. When he came back downstairs he held out a sweater to me. Part of me wanted to refuse, I didn't want anything of his, but I was cold. 

“Thanks” I said, grudgingly, and pulled it over my head. It hung loosely on me, and the sleeves were a bit too long. I rolled them up. It smelled of him. 

He didn't say anything about the laundry hanging everywhere. I wondered if he knew those 'women' would be down by the river today. He had lived around here for quite some time, maybe he did. If so, did he send me down there today on purpose? I had no idea, I didn't know him. I didn't want to ask him, in case he'd say I wasn't allowed to talk to them, and we didn't speak as we ate. 

After dinner he went into the sitting room, where it was warmest. After a short moment of hesitation I followed. Bane sat in the chair, reading, and I sat down on the sofa. It was hard and not very comfortable. I stared into the fire. The rain just kept falling and I found myself thinking about Audrey and his leaking roof. It was quiet except for the crackle of the fire and the constant thrumming of the rain. 

“Can I borrow a book?” I asked after a little while and Bane nodded. I went upstairs and took one from the shelf, not caring much which. I had difficulties concentrating, though, when I was back in the sitting room. The silence in the room was too pressing, the loudness in my head too distracting. 

The next morning there was a chill in the air when I went to let the chickens out that hadn't been there the previous mornings. The sky was still overcast, a granite gray, and the ground was muddy. I slipped, right outside the backdoor, and caught myself with my hands on the ground before I tumbled, face-first, into the dirt. I felt a hand on my elbow, drawing me to my feet. Bane was behind me, he'd gone to fetch water from the well. I pulled away.

I went inside without looking at him. He didn't say anything, but the air felt tense somehow. I didn't want him to touch me, but I got the sense he didn't like that I had shaken him off. I washed the mud from my hands and then I made breakfast. 

He didn't leave right away after we had eaten, like he usually did. Instead he went into the sitting room, rummaging about in there. I wanted him gone and hovered by the counter in the kitchen, even though the dishes were done and I had already thrown out the water.

Eventually he did leave, and then I took the laundry, dry now, and went upstairs and folded it. Then I took a nap. It was easier to sleep when I had the bed to myself. The wooden planks that made up the ceiling was spotted with dark circles where twigs and branches had been. I looked at them when I woke up and it felt as if they were eyes, looking back at me. I wondered if there were eyes somewhere far up there, watching me, seeing me here. 

I hadn't committed some violent crime, I had been stupid and desperate, and for that my whole life was taken from me. I had been in college, not far from graduating. I had friends, girlfriends sometimes. Now I was alone, my only company a sullen brute who had the power to decide everything over me. 

I wanted to cry but instead I got up. I followed the same path I had yesterday, slippery now, until I reached the riverbank. There was no one there. Next week, Jenny had said, but I was disappointed all the same. Suddenly scared of being out here by myself, even though it wasn't that far from the house, I hurried back. A scared little mouse. I despised myself. 

**

I sat on the front porch a few days later when a guy showed up on horseback. I was halfway up from my seat, prepared to go inside, but then I recognized him. He had been here before, I had seen him through the window a couple of times, a friend or something of Bane's. 

He dismounted in the front yard. I didn't say anything, remembering what Bane had told me; I was not allowed to talk to men, except for him and Reverend Gordon. The man came closer, leading the horse by the reins. Bane came out through the front door when the man was putting the reins around one of the wooden pillars supporting the roof over the porch.

“'morning” the man said to him and Bane nodded a little in return.

The horse was a pale, yellowish color, a lot bigger this close than I had expected. I had seen police horses, but maybe I hadn't paid them much attention.

“I talked to the Chinese” the man said. “They're interested.”

Bane listened as the man talked, it sounded as if they were either selling something to the Chinese, or that they wanted the Chinese's help with something they were going to sell to someone else. I felt invisible, ashamed of the way I just sat there and ashamed of how I must look. 

The man fell silent. Bane shot me a glance. “Go inside” he said. 

It was humiliating, even more so than sitting right there and being completely ignored. I hated that I did it, even though just seconds ago I had wished I had gone in right away, to avoid the entire situation. 

When Bane came in I turned on him.

“Do you enjoy ordering me around?” I said.

He didn't reply, he just looked at me and I glared back.

“You have something you want to say?” he finally said. 

“You're a piece of shit!”

He grabbed my arm, hard enough to bruise. 

“I paid Wayne good money for you” he said, his voice a dangerous growl. “I expect you to behave.”

I was shaken by that, I'd had no idea he had paid him. But the thought was also revolting.

“I'm not your fucking property! Fuck you!”

I more or less expected the blow, having just said what I said, but it still sent me careening into the kitchen counter. I didn't have time to straighten up before he had me by the back of my neck, holding me down.

“If you ever talk to me like that again, I will beat you” he said. 

I struggled to get my hands on the counter, but I couldn't get the leverage I needed, he was too strong. 

“You're a right bastard” I said, a little out of breath, unable to keep quiet. 

He let me up then, only to hit me again. I stumbled backwards into the wall. I had some fleeting thought about hitting him back, but when he came at me, towering and furious, I realized he could kill me. I cowered. 

He pulled me up, holding my arms. 

“I treat you good” he said.

This was good? 

“And this is what I get in return?” he said. 

He stared at me, until I turned my gaze down, then he let me go and left, through the front door.

They had been open hand blows, but it still hurt like hell. Worst of all was the humiliation, and the feeling of being so powerless. I had baited him, I knew that, but he wanted me to be grateful for how he treated me?

He didn't come back all evening. I had no idea where he'd gone, and I didn't care. I ate an apple and some bread, then I went to bed, wishing I'd had the nerve to go lie on the sofa, no matter how uncomfortable that would be. 

I was still awake when he came into the bedroom. I heard him get undressed behind me and then the mattress dipped as he got into bed. I hated sharing a bed with him. It was so unnatural and forced, but he didn't seem to see that. 

The next morning he was silent, but then he usually was, so I couldn't tell if he was still angry or not. I didn't care. Today was laundry day. After breakfast I gathered everything and started towards the river before Bane had even left for the day. After all, he wasn't going to complain about me doing housework, that's what he had me for.

Only one other person was at the river when I got there, Jenny. 

“Hi” I said. “Where are the others?”

“On their way probably. Sometimes not everyone can come. And now autumn is coming, there's lots of other stuff to do.”

“Like what?” I was an idiot around here, I knew, but I'd rather ask anyway. 

“Preserve and pickle things, bottle food, for the winter. There are no freezers here, or have you got one?” He smiled a little. 

Of course we didn't, there wasn't any electricity. 

“I don't know how to do any of that” I said. 

“Maybe Bane buys that stuff, he's rich.”

I hadn't thought of Bane as rich, far from it. Mainly because everything I had seen here so far was hopelessly old-fashioned and the whole place seemed like a dump. I could imagine Wayne as being rich in these settings, given the look of his place, how it was furbished and decorated with printed wallpapers. 

But now that I thought about it, drawing from my limited knowledge of pre-industrial civilization, you had to make everything yourself, or trade with others. Except for a patch where Bane grew potatoes, and the chickens, we didn't produce any of our own food. He had to buy it, from somewhere. 

“Do you grow your own food?” I asked and Jenny nodded. 

“Do you live far from here?”

“No, it's just through the woods, a little further up.” He made a gesture towards the trees behind him.

“How long have you been here?”

His gaze met mine. “Twelve years” he said. 

It felt like a soft blow to my belly, hearing that number. It seemed an impossibly long time, but it was still only a fraction of the time I had in front of me. I'd grow old here, it was unfathomable. Breathing was suddenly difficult.

“Anna” Jenny said and put a hand on my shoulder. “Don't think about it.”

“Don't call me that.”

“Okay” Jenny said, and removed his hand. “Keep your husband happy, and you'll be alright. He lets you come here. A lot of wives aren't allowed to leave the house at all. And that doesn't look like a very bad beating.”

His eyes went to my cheekbone, where there was a bruise from where Bane had hit me.

“He's just one man, not ten of them in a day, every day” Jenny said. 

Basically he was saying the same thing Bane had said. I should be grateful for my fate, for being Bane's 'wife'. I knew I would have been worse off at Wayne's place, Bane hadn't tried to rape me, but I had a hard time feeling that was reason enough to be grateful. It was an enormous relief, but I should have been able to take it for granted. In my life before I had never had the constant threat of physical harm over my head. 

I wiped a hand over my face.

“You'll get used to it, eventually” Jenny said. 

There was movement among the trees and then Audrey came walking down the slope towards us. 

“Are you never worried, going out here by yourself?” I asked, wanting to think about something else.

“No” Jenny said. “I've got a strong husband, if anyone hurt me, he'd kill them.”

I wasn't sure Bane liked me enough to care. He didn't seem to like me at all. 

“It's a matter of honor” Audrey said, who had caught the last part of our conversation. “You're Bane's, no one takes what's his, you don't need to worry.”

He was tall and skinny, his face almost gaunt. I wondered, despite myself, what their husbands were like. 

Meeting the three of them, Jenny, Audrey and Beatrice, quickly became the highlight of my weeks. I looked forward to it, longed for it through the rest of the days that dragged on endlessly, and I sometimes thought I'd go crazy, alone in the house with no one to talk to. 

But it was getting colder every day, the leaves on the trees beginning to turn different shades of red and yellow and brown. The water in the river growing colder. My hands were red and sore after having been soaked for hours in water that felt icy after only a little while. I wore Bane's sweater most of the time. 

“We won't come here next week” Jenny said one morning. “It's getting too cold.”

Desolation spread throughout me, making me feel hollow and burning with desperation at the same time. 

“Can't we meet anyway?” I asked.

“Your husband would let you make social calls?” Audrey said, his tone dry. 

“He won't know, he's not home.”

“My husband is” Audrey said, a finality in his voice.

“I can't” Beatrice said, smiling a little nervously. 

I couldn't believe they were all so afraid, even though I knew perfectly well how I'd felt when Bane came at me, angry and huge. He hadn't laid a hand on me since that last time though, and I'd chosen to forget how I had cowered. 

Jenny was watching me. 

“Don't try to start anything” he said. “There won't be some great revolt, and if you don't get that, you'll end up getting yourself hurt, and us as well.”

“I'm not suggesting an insurgent” I said, angrily. “I only asked that we'd meet up, just like we have done.”

“Women meeting regularly for something other than housework?” Jenny said. “You'd think the men would look kindly upon that?” 

“I have to go” Audrey said and picked up his things. 

“I'll see you in the spring” Beatrice said. “It's great that you're one of us, I'm glad we're friends.” He smiled a little, then he left too.

Only Jenny remained. I looked at him, still feeling angry. He was smarter than the other two, or at least Beatrice. It was difficult to say with Audrey, he didn't speak much.

“I'm guessing Bane treats you well, or he would have beaten that out of you already” Jenny said. “You're not stupid, where would you be without him?”

I was silent.

“How long have you been with Charlie?” I asked. Charlie was Jenny's husband, I knew his name because Jenny had mentioned it.

“Since I got here. He was at the docks when I got off the ship, and he fought two other guys, killing one of them, to have me.”

Considering Jenny's looks that wasn't all that surprising to hear, twelve years ago he must have been even more beautiful. 

“Do you like him?”

Jenny smiled a small, wry smile. “That doesn't matter, I need him.”

“He treats you well?”

“Considering the options, yes.”

I looked out across the river. It looked black in the gray daylight. I missed my home and my life so much it hurt. I was grateful I'd made some friends, but it wasn't the same as the people I'd had before, far from it. Jenny startled me by suddenly putting his arms around me and hugging me tightly.

The touch felt unfamiliar and strange, as if I had somehow forgotten what physical contact like that felt like.

“Don't do anything stupid, okay?” he said. “Like Beatrice said, I'm glad we're friends. Hang in there.”

He let go of me again.

“I'll see you” he said and I nodded. 

I still felt miserable, walking back to the house, back to Bane. And I continued feeling miserable. Without laundry-day to look forward to, laundry I now had to do in one of the sheds in a large tub, heating the water over a fire, there was nothing that gave me any kind of joy. I had lived for those times I got to spend with three people who were nice to me, who talked to me, who, I had to admit, were like me.

I did what I had to do, I cooked and cleaned the house, but I spent a lot more time in bed during the day, when I was alone in the house. That also had the benefit of keeping me warm. Even though I had learned to light the fire in the sitting room the house was chilly. The chimney ran through the bedroom up to the roof, it made up a part of the wall in there, which meant that room was a bit warmer than the rest of the house. Lying under the cover in bed I cocooned myself off. Bane had gotten me a winter-coat and thick, woolen socks and I wore the socks day and night. 

I didn't think he noticed anything, but one morning – I had just gotten dressed – he pinched my side, poking me in the ribs. It wasn't rough, but I still jumped and moved away.

“You've gotten too thin” he said. 

“Why do you care?” I replied.

I thought he'd get angry, but he just looked at me. 

“You're unhappy?” he said eventually.

I snapped. “Yes, I'm unhappy! You'd be too, alone here day in and day out! You keep me here like a prisoner, and make me wear these stupid clothes...” I grimaced, not wanting to cry in front of him. 

“What's wrong with your clothes?”

God, he was an idiot. “They're women's clothes!”

“You're a woman.”

“No, I'm not! You know I'm not!”

I glowered at him. I waited for him to grab me, or hit me, but he did neither. His face was unreadable.

“Out here, you are” he said, his tone flat. “I try to treat you well, you get everything you need, but all you have for me is scorn.”

“You mean you treat me well because you don't rape me?”

“Yes. I don't rape you.”

It was a subject we hadn't come near before and I didn't feel comfortable talking about it. 

“I don't make you do anything” he said. “Even though I could.”

He didn't make it sound like a threat, but I still felt as if it was. 

“Why'd you take me in?” I asked, not looking directly at him.

He didn't reply. After a short silence he walked past me.

“Don't lie in bed all day” he said before he left the room. 

I had no idea how he knew about that.

A couple of days later he surprised me again, by telling me to go out to the car after we had eaten dinner. It had started snowing and a thin, white layer covered the yard. I hadn't been in the car before. It was a pick-up and in the real world it would have been called a classic. It wasn't exactly in mint condition, but I had seen him fixing things under the hood now and then and he took care of it. 

I got in on the passenger side. I saw him lock the front door before he joined me in the car. 

“Where are we going?” I asked, feeling a little nervous.

“Town.”

It felt strange sitting there in the compartment, with him. It was strange to be in a car at all, the last time had been when Wayne gave me a ride into town on my first day, then expected me to pay him back by working at his brothel. I glanced at Bane. He didn't ask nearly as much in return for the food, the roof over my head. 

I hadn't seen the town since I ran away from there. The picture I had in my mind was blurry, lost in a haze of the shock and fear of those first days, and it looked different now that it was dark too. Torches blazed from the facades of the houses on the main street. There were a lot more people around too. Now that I knew a bit more about the island that made sense – people worked during the days, farming the land for their food and living. 

Bane parked outside a stone house and we got out. He took a crate from the back and I heard a soft clink from it as he lifted it. Booze, I thought. He rapped his knuckles on the door once, before opening it.

“Wait here” he said before he went inside. He left the door open and I felt heat hit me where I stood.

I didn't understand how it could be so warm in there, before I took in what I could see of the interior. It was a smithy. Bane put the crate down on a bench. 

“Alain” he called out, his voice sounding hoarse. A man showed up, older and bald, but big. 

“Don't let the warmth out the door, you brute” the man, presumably Alain, said. “Tell the wifey to step inside.”

Bane turned to look at me and I stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind me. 

“This is much appreciated” Alain said, patting the crate. “I've got something for you as well.”

He led the way further into the house, through a doorway and Bane went with him. I waited by the door. There were things in there I didn't know what they were, but I could see horse-shoes and doorhandles, a couple of knives and pokers for fires. 

“Anna.” Bane had showed up in the doorway and gestured for me to come inside. I walked over there. Beyond the doorway was a kitchen, not much different from the one at the farmhouse. A young man was sitting by the table, and by the stove was a woman, older than my friends from the river; he had to be in his sixties, his hair was graying and there were lines on his face, but he was wearing the same kind of dress I wore. 

“Give some to Bane's wife too” Alain said to him.

The woman, I assumed he was Alain's wife, poured something from a pot into a cup and handed it to me. I met his gaze for a second; he didn't smile, didn't look either unkind or friendly. 

I could smell it as I lifted the cup, sweet and rich. It was hot chocolate. It tasted amazing, filling my mouth with a smooth, rich flavor. I had forgotten something could taste that good. 

Alain chatted a bit more with Bane, basically telling Bane what everybody had ordered. I guessed that was useful information, especially if someone ordered a bunch of weapons. The young man at the table chipped in a few details, perhaps he was an apprentice. 

Then we were leaving. “Thank you” I said quietly as I returned the cup, directing it at the wife, aware I wasn't allowed to talk to the men. He nodded a little. 

We went back to the car. “Can we have hot chocolate too?” I asked.

“Sugar and cocoa are hard to come by” Bane replied, picking up another crate and handing it to me. It was heavy.

I deduced that I had been shown an extraordinary hospitality, being invited to a cup.

“You don't want to eat sugar” Bane said and picked up another crate.

“Yes I do.”

“Your teeth will go bad.”

I hadn't thought about that. There probably weren't any dentists here, there was no real tooth-paste and the tooth-brushes were handmade. 

He looked at me. He didn't smile, but there was a hint of something in his eyes, hard to see in the faint light, a dry kind of amusement maybe. 

We continued on foot down the street, leaving the car outside Alain's. It was mostly men who were out, but I saw a couple of women too, walking next to someone wearing trousers. I stayed close to Bane. 

He dropped off a crate at another house and then he took the one I was carrying, picking it up as easily as if it weighed nothing. We were getting closer to Wayne's place. My eyes were drawn to it, the wide front porch lit up by torches. I could hear the sound of voices, and the piano. There were people sitting on the railing and leaning against the wooden pillars – women with brightly colored dresses, made of patterned materials, like the flowery dress I'd had, and that had to be imported somehow. 

Then I saw Wayne. He was standing outside the door, perfectly still, and he was watching me. I felt an ice-cold shiver go up my spine. 

“Bane” I whispered. “I don't want to go in there.”

Bane turned his head slightly in my direction.

“We're not going in there” he replied.

We walked past the brothel. Other men we met didn't look at me and I knew the reason perfectly well. Bane. 

He dropped off the last crate at another house, exchanging a few words with the inhabitant, then we walked back to the car. 

“Where does Wayne get booze to his bar, if he doesn't get it from you?” I asked when we were driving back.

Bane didn't ask how I knew he ran booze, which I of course could have worked out today, but not that he controlled the business. 

“He does get it from me” he replied. 

“And what do you get in return?” I asked. 

“It varies.”

Prostitutes? I didn't dare ask.

“Gas, mostly” he said. 

“So, when you paid him, for me, what did you give him? A case of whiskey, two?”

Bane looked at me, but had to turn his eyes back on the road.

“I just want to know” I said, sullenly. How much was I worth? 

He was quiet a short moment.

“I paid him money” he said then. 

I didn't ask any more. It didn't really matter. I was, I realized, glad he'd thought I was worth it. The thought of being with Wayne seemed even worse than before, now that I had seen him and that place again.

Bane had taken me out to be kind, I knew that, because I had complained about being alone in the house every day. We got back to the house and I didn't know how to say thank you. When he didn't say anything about it, bringing it up only seemed forced. I settled for not sulking, and made tea and brought it into the sitting room, where we sat reading until it was bedtime.


	3. Chapter 3

The days were shorter and the nights longer. We usually didn't get up until dawn and sometimes Bane stayed in bed a little longer, while I got up and got started on breakfast. 

I lit the stove and put on water for tea and washing. I took out the bread from the pantry, I had to bake today, this was the last piece, and I also took out grains to make porridge. 

It was cooler in the pantry, a vent in the wall letting the winter chill in, and I shivered. I went back upstairs to get my sweater, my woolen socks soundless on the floor. Bane was lying in bed, holding himself, jerking off, and I stepped back so fast I nearly lost my balance. I hurried downstairs again, but I knew he had seen me. 

I felt profoundly embarrassed. I didn't want to see that, didn't want to know anything about it. The closest we had gotten to the subject was that conversation we'd had about how he didn't make me do anything. I should be grateful he took care of it himself, and maybe I was, but I didn't want to be reminded he even had that side to him. 

I didn't want to be reminded of that side of myself either. I woke up with an erection sometimes, but I didn't do anything about it. I had tried touching myself a few times, when I was alone in the house, but it felt wrong somehow. 

When Bane came downstairs I was hunched over the stove, stirring the porridge. He didn't say anything about it and if he was embarrassed, I couldn't tell. 

“You should go to church” he said a few days later.

“What?” 

“It's Christmas day.”

“Today?” I felt shocked. I had never cared much about Christmas, but I had never missed it completely. In Gotham it was impossible to miss it – decorations everywhere, Christmas songs on the radio and crazy commerce. “Do you celebrate Christmas here?” I asked.

“I'll take you to church, if you want to.” 

That seemed to be the extent of it. I didn't expect, or even want, some mock version of a Christmas celebration, and going to church wasn't something I had ever done, but I nodded. Anything to get out of the house for a bit. 

A pale sun shone from behind a thin, white veil spread across the sky. It made the snow glisten and as far as winter days went, it was a beautiful one. The church was a wooden building just outside of town. I wondered who had built it, who had come here and thought it worth to spend their limited resources building a house of worship.

But a lot of people had gathered outside. Men, and women. Some of the men cast furtive glances at Bane, some nodded 'hello'. The women kept their gazes down. I did too, until I saw Jenny. I caught his eyes and he smiled a little. I smiled back. I was surprised to see his husband was younger than he, probably by a good ten years. Jenny was forty, I knew because I had asked. That meant Charlie had only been twenty or so when he'd killed to get him. 

I glanced at Bane. I couldn't imagine him killing someone to lay claim to me. He had paid someone, though, that meant he wanted me for some reason. 

Inside the church was mostly unadorned. A big, wooden cross hung above a simple altar, and a small raised platform held a bible-stand. The pews filled up quickly and I wondered if it was always this crowded. Some smaller ruckuses broke out, nothing violent, but some men didn't want their wives sitting next to other men, so they had to change seats. 

I was next to Bane, and on my other side was a woman with his long hair in a braid down to his waist. My hair had grown longer since I came here, but it was nowhere near that long. The pew was cramped for space and I ended up sitting close to Bane, his thigh warm and firm along mine, my shoulder against his arm. It felt weird, but I couldn't move away, squeezed between him and the woman. Somehow that made it seem more okay, that a stranger was sitting so close as well. 

Reverend Gordon stepped up on the platform. The service was pretty regular, from what I could tell with my limited knowledge. The Reverend read from the bible, about the birth of Jesus Christ, and talked about the meaning of Christmas. And there was singing – hymns I didn't know, but a lot of people did and the singing filled the room. It filled me as well, not in a religious way, but because it had been so long since I last heard music, and I hadn't realized how much I missed it. I glanced at Bane, unsurprisingly he didn't sing, but other men and women did. Of course all the voices were male. 

Afterward there was a line to get out, slow-moving and someone shoved me to the side. 

“Hey!” I said, annoyed. That made Bane turn his head and the man who had shoved me cowered under his gaze. 

Outside I looked for Jenny, and spotted him a short distance away, next to Charlie who were talking to some other men. Seeing Jenny like this, in the presence of his husband, was odd – his gaze lowered, standing silent to the side. I wondered if that was what I looked like, trailing after Bane. 

“Did you have a wife before me?” I asked when we were in the car.

“No.”

“There are all these 'husbands' and 'wives', but does anyone ever get married in church?”

“No.”

It was quiet a short while and then he looked at me.

“Were you married, before you came here?” he asked.

The question took me by surprise, mostly because he had never asked me anything before.

“No” I said. “If I had it would have been to a girl, though.”

He didn't say anything. 

“Can we go to church again?” I asked after a little while. “If there are services, on Sundays or something?”

He 'hmm-ed'. “Yes” he said then. 

When we got back to the house it had started snowing again. I got the fire started in the stove in the kitchen, just for warmth, it was too early for dinner.

“Sorry I can't make a turkey dinner” I joked.

“What's that?”

I looked at him.

“You never had it for Christmas?” I was flabbergasted. “Turkey... It's a bird.”

“Like pheasants?”

“I don't really know, actually.” I kept looking at him. “Where are you from?”

He didn't seem interested in answering the question. 

“Hey...” I said when he turned to leave the room. “We could have a drink? If you have any in the house?” 

“You want a drink?” he said. 

“Yeah, sure, why not?” 

He looked mildly amused.

“Why is that funny?” I asked. 

He shook his head. “You want a drink, you can have a drink” he said. 

I should have been sad and miserable, my first Christmas spent here, but truth was the holidays didn't hold many fond memories for me. Having been out someplace and the promise of going to church again lifted my spirit.

After dinner Bane brought a bottle and two glasses into the sitting room. 

“This is the stuff you make?” I asked, sitting down on the sofa. The book I was reading was on the table.

“One of them.”

“Where do you make it?”

“A place not far from here.”

“Why not just do it here, there's room enough in the barn, isn't there?” It seemed unnecessary to go to work someplace else, when there was an entire farm with enough space right here.

“Because we never leave it unmanned, and I don't want people hanging about the house all the time.”

He poured some of the clear liquid into the glasses. 

“Because of me?” I asked.

“No, before you, too.” He handed me one of the glasses. “It would be irritating.”

“I'd never have guessed you'd think that.” 

He looked at me, not bothering to reply. He was in a good mood, though, I could tell. 

“Merry Christmas” I said, raising my glass. I tasted the drink. “Holy crap!” The booze was really strong, burned all the way down my throat. “I don't mean it's bad, it's just, god, it's really strong!”

He actually smiled, with closed lips and only briefly, but I had never seen him do that before. 

“You want something else?” he said.

“No.” I took another sip. It actually was pretty good, I just hadn't had anything stronger than pickled beetroots for a long time.

He drank some from his own glass. 

“You don't drink much for someone manufacturing alcohol” I said. 

“Hmm.”

“You don't like it?”

“I like it fine. I don't crave it.”

I hadn't been a heavy drinker before either, mostly just a few beers now and then, but I had lost weight since then, and time had lowered my tolerance. I could feel the alcohol warming my limbs and making my head swirl a bit.

“How long have you been here?” I asked. 

“A long time.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

I wasn't sure I believed that. 

“How did you get this house? You didn't build it, did you?”

“No. I killed the man who had it.”

“Where?”

“Right there.” He pointed in the direction where I was sitting.

An icy chill filled my stomach, but it wasn't really fear, it was more like the shiver caused by a scary movie. 

“How?”

“I slit his throat.”

I looked around the room, trying to imagine the scuffle. I could easily imagine Bane slitting someone's throat, and I probably should have been more disturbed by that than I was. Then another thought hit me, and that one made me scared.

“What if someone comes here and kills you?” I said. “Or me?”

“No. He was a drunk, had no friends.”

I took another sip from my glass. “You've never asked me what I did to end up here” I said.

“I don't care. It doesn't matter.”

There was more left in his glass than in mine, probably because he knew the importance of staying alert and keeping your senses about you. I didn't need to worry about that though, that's what he was for. The constant guarding that I felt imprisoned me – it also kept me safe. As demeaning as it was to admit, I counted on him to look out for me. Maybe if I had been some hardened criminal before I came here, things would have been different, but I wasn't. I had been a college student who made a mistake. People like Bane, and the other men I'd seen, I didn't know how to be like that. 

“I was in school” I said. “College. I was going to be a teacher. I like kids, they're fun, you know?”

It occurred to me I was never going to meet another funny kid in my life. Never have any of my own, either. 

“Fuck” I said, putting a hand over my eyes. I took a couple of deep breaths to gather myself, then I straightened. “It's the booze, I probably shouldn't have any more.”

Bane didn't say anything. 

“Thank you” I said, putting my glass down. 

**

The winter had never been so dark before. Without streetlights, shop windows, the million lights from people's homes, as soon as the sun set it was pitch black. It was still dark in the room, although the sky had begun to shift slightly outside the window, when I woke up and started to get out of bed.

“You don't need to get up yet” Bane said. 

After a second's hesitation I lay back down again. I wasn't sure what he wanted, if he wanted to do something. The air in the room was chilly; underneath the cover it was warm, the bed warmed by his body heat, and mine. 

He was clearly awake, since he had spoken, and I was very much awake now too. He didn't do anything, though. I was lying on my back and I could see him in the corner of my eye.

When morning had indisputably arrived, pale daylight falling in through the window, I got up. 

Bane made good on his promise to take me to church again. It was far less people who had gathered for this service, though, than the one on Christmas day. 

“I'll come get you, after” Bane said.

“You're not coming too?”

He didn't reply. “Okay” I said. 

I went inside by myself, a very odd feeling, and sat down in an empty pew. It was cold and I wrapped my coat tighter around me. There were both men and women there, but the majority was actually women. It seemed other men did like Bane, and dropped their wives off. 

Maybe religion was viewed as something soft, or perhaps it was regarded as something harmless for women to partake in. I was offended, but then the whispering started. Hushed conversations taking place in the pews. Even when the Reverend stepped on to the platform it continued, in a way. I was handed a note, discreetly passed on from someone in front of me who pointed towards the back of the church before going still again. 

I read the note, I couldn't help myself, I was so surprised. 

'Am fine. Doctor came.'

I noticed a man sitting across the isle looking in my direction and I quickly hid the note in my hand, then I passed it on. 

Reverend Gordon had to know this was going on. He couldn't not notice from where he was standing, facing the room. I suspected the husbands who accompanied their wives to services knew, or perhaps they were truly religious. Did Bane know? If he'd ever been to an ordinary service I couldn't imagine it would have escaped his notice. 

I was surprised, to say the least, that part of the sermon was on how it was a sin to lie with a man as with a woman. I didn't dare to look around me to see how that was received.

When the service was over I saw Jenny, sitting a few rows behind me. He smiled, and then he dawdled by the door until I got there.

“Hi” he said, in a whisper. “I didn't see you when I came in. How are you?”

“Fine. You?”

“Fine too. I was hoping you'd come back.”

“I didn't know you went to church.”

“I haven't for years, but Charlie thought I should start again.”

“Why?”

“He gets annoyed with me when I get bored, I think.” I smiled a little, but I felt uncomfortable. The way he said it made it sound almost like a normal marriage. But none of this was normal. 

We had to leave then, or risk drawing attention to ourselves. Bane was waiting outside, and I saw Charlie too. I wanted to ask Jenny if he'd be here next week, but I didn't get the chance. 

I made sure I went to church every Sunday after that. Jenny and I sat in the same pew, getting a few minutes before and after each service for whispered conversation. Bane took me every week, and picked me up after. He didn't comment on my sudden devoutness, but he knew. I knew he did. He even knew Jenny and I were friends, just like I suspected Charlie knew. They just didn't care. 

I was out and about town a bit more now, sometimes making errands with Bane during the Sunday afternoons, and I saw more of how he and other people behaved, and it hit me. He didn't mind me spending time with other wives, because he didn't feel threatened by them, not in the slightest. In his mind I, and the others, truly were women. I didn't like being viewed like that, like something I wasn't, but it did mean I got to see Jenny. 

Of course I never saw the wives who weren't allowed to leave the house at all, but there were other differences I observed. Small things, perhaps, but to me they were significant. When I saw Jenny and Charlie for instance, from a distance, when they were by themselves, they were talking. Just like I talked to Bane sometimes. Not everybody were. And Bane had not once hit me in public, he had in fact not hit me at all for quite some time, but there were husbands who did. 

One thing that puzzled me about church, though, was that almost every Sunday Reverend Gordon mentioned that bible passage saying how men shouldn't sleep with other men. It was mind-boggling to me that he would bother, or dare to, when almost everyone in his congregation did just that, and a lot of them didn't have a choice either. 

I had the opportunity to ask him, not that I would dream of doing it, when he showed up at our house again one day. The snow had started to melt, making the yard one big pool of mud and I stood in the middle of it, having just fed the chickens, when he came walking from the road. 

“Hi” I said when he stopped a short way away from me. I was allowed to talk to him, after all.

“Hi” he said, a little out of breath.

“Did you walk all the way from town?” I asked and he nodded. 

It wasn't that far, but still it must have taken him a while. 

“I need the exercise” he said. “Also, I don't have a car, or a horse.”

He took a moment to catch his breath and then he looked at me. “How are you?” he asked.

“Fine.”

He nodded. “I have noticed you have joined the congregation” he said. 

“Yeah, I...” I didn't really know what to say. “I know most of the songs now, at least.”

He smiled. “That's good.”

Bane came walking from around the corner of the house. He wasn't in any hurry, walking in his usual laid-back swaggering kind of way, over to where I and the Reverend stood. 

“Bane” the Reverend said as greeting.

Bane didn't reply right away. “Reverend” he said then, turning his eyes to him. 

He was pissed off with the Reverend, I realized. But not pissed off enough not to greet him. 

No one said anything for a couple of seconds. Then Bane turned towards the house, motioning for me to go with him. When I stepped up onto the porch I turned my head and was surprised to see the Reverend had followed, a few steps behind.

He came into the house. Bane had sat down at the kitchen table and I was making tea. The Reverend stopped just inside the doorway to the kitchen. 

“I came to ask a favor” he said.

Bane looked at him. 

“You?” he said. “You want a favor?” 

“Yes” the Reverend said. 

It was quiet for a moment.

“That's the way it is then?” Bane said then. “When it suits you, you want my help.”

The Reverend didn't say anything for a while, and Bane shook his head a little. 

“You've got some nerve” he said then. 

I had never seen him angry like that without there being some threat of violence in the air. Maybe because everyone I had met was afraid of him, including me, but Reverend Gordon didn't seem to be. 

“You know I have the greatest respect for you...” the Reverend began, but was interrupted when Bane rose. “What I said...”

“Yes, what you said” Bane cut him off. “How about you go and think about that, and leave me the hell alone?”

Bane didn't raise his voice, he didn't need to, he sounded stern enough as it was. I was looking from one to the other. 

“This is how you want it to be?” the Reverend said.

“This is how I want it to be.”

The Reverend looked at him, then he glanced in my direction. He turned his gaze to Bane again. 

“Okay” he said then. 

He left. I had no idea what it was I had just witnessed. I was actually surprised Bane hadn't ordered me out of the room. The Reverend confused me, he wasn't big and strong, didn't have the same demeanor as the other men, but it seemed he didn't have any trouble because of it. Maybe it was because he was a man of God and even criminals respected that.

**

I stayed in bed a little longer in the mornings, like Bane wanted me to. Sometimes we talked a little, about what we were going to do that day, and sometimes it was quiet. I got up and went downstairs to get the stove going, and often he stayed a moment longer, not caring that I knew he was going to jerk off. I didn't care either. 

He took me to church, despite his apparent falling out with Reverend Gordon. After a service we walked over to main street. There were a lot more people about than usual. Raised voices.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“A ship came in this morning.” He was frowning.

A lot of things seemed to happen simultaneously. People were running. There was shouting. There was a loud crash.

“Let's go back” Bane said and took my arm. 

We headed back. Between two buildings a little further up a man had been overpowered by several others. Judging by his clothes he was a new arrival. They held him down and I saw one of his attackers mount him, heard him scream and I looked away. I was ashamed later that I did, but equally ashamed that I had seen. 

I heard another crash behind us. Bane took me back to the church and pulled me inside. It was empty now, but Reverend Gordon came out from a backroom. 

“You stay in here and lock the door” Bane said. He pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and held it out to the Reverend.

“You know I'm not comfortable...” the Reverend began.

“I don't care. You keep her safe, and if anyone other than me come through the door, you pull the trigger.”

He pressed the gun into the Reverend's hand, and the Reverend nodded. 

“Where are you going?” I said, looking at Bane. I was really scared.

“I'll come back for you when things have calmed down.” 

He left and the Reverend locked the door. I could hear loud bangs, even from here, and my insides squirmed.

“Come” the Reverend said. I followed him into the backroom. It was windowless and looked like a kind of study; it held a small desk and bookshelves lined the walls, but there was also a narrow bed and a small table, and a wood stove. He lived here. 

He placed the gun on the table and looked at it for a moment, then he turned to me.

“Perhaps it doesn't seem appropriate at a time like this” he said. “But I'll make us a cup of tea.”

I glanced at the front door, visible from where I stood. 

“There have been riots before” the Reverend said. “They'll get it under control.”

“Who, Bane?” 

“And his men. Bruce Wayne also has a group.” 

A gang was what he meant. This was a prison, no matter how much they played at being a society. There were no laws here. I felt sick, thinking about what I had seen. Rape, in broad daylight, and I did nothing. No one did. 

“He gave you his gun” I said.

“He'll have others in the car.”

He gestured to one of the chairs and I sat down. He made tea. Worry snaked in the pit of my stomach.

I looked at the bookshelves, just to try to think about something else. There were all kinds of books, not just religious ones.

“You're not afraid of him” I said after a little while.

“Well... I knew him when he was little.”

I snatched my eyes away from the books and looked at him.

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

“When he was a child.”

“Are you from the same place?”

He shook his head. “No, he came here as a boy, he was maybe two.”

I gaped at him. “But...” It didn't make any sense. “That's absurd...”

The Reverend looked at me. “I suppose it isn't a secret, a lot of people who've been here long enough knows it. He was sent here as a child, to serve out the sentence of his father, who had either died before he could be shipped here, or escaped the court system, I don't know which.”

I didn't believe him. That couldn't happen, could it? I shook my head in disbelief.

“What country is he from then? Who does that?”

“I'm not sure of that either. He spoke Spanish when he came here, to the degree anyone that age speaks.”

I was trying to wrap my head around it. 

“How would anyone even survive here, as a child?”

“There were people who looked out for him.”

“You?”

“I took care of him, yes, and a couple of others.”

He had some of his tea. I was trying to picture it. I couldn't even picture Bane having ever been a small child, but of course he had been, everyone had. 

“What was he like?” I asked.

“Quiet.” The Reverend smiled a little. 

“Why'd you name him Bane? Or who did that?”

“We never did get his name out of him. Or maybe he just didn't understand what we were asking him, and when he was old enough to understand he had forgotten it. No one named him Bane, he earned that name, getting to where he is today.”

“So what did you call him then?” 

“I'm afraid we mostly called him the boy, a few other nicknames. I didn't actually think he'd make it, but, of course, he did.” 

There were a couple of loud bangs, from not so far away by the sound of it. The Reverend turned his eyes towards the front door for a moment, but there was no other sounds, except for the distant noise. In my mind the town was a war zone, and fear clutched me. What if Bane didn't come back? If he was hurt or killed, what would happen to me then? 

“I don't know if you are religious, or if you come here to speak to your friend” the Reverend said. “But maybe you'd like to pray?”

“Um...” I wasn't religious. I had only prayed a few times in my life, when I had been in utter despair. Maybe now was one of those times. “Okay.”

I wasn't surprised he had noticed me and Jenny and our hushed conversations. I clasped my hands and sat silent, as the Reverend said a prayer. I felt slightly ridiculous, but in my mind I was still pleading to whoever might be listening up there. Let Bane make it. I needed him to come back for me. 

“After the service” I said a short while later, a thought having just occurred to me. “Did you see Jenny and Charlie? Do you know if they left? Do you know who they are?”

“Yes, I know who they are. I'm afraid I don't know. I didn't see where they went.”

We sat there a long time, it felt like an eternity. I had some of my tea, cold now. It wasn't the same as the one we had at home, this was maybe rose hip. It was good. If I made it through today, I'd ask Bane if we could trade for some.

When there was a banging at the door I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Stay here” the Reverend said. 

I didn't. I followed him out into the church. He had the gun in one hand. 

“Gordon!” It sounded like Bane.

I looked to the Reverend. That was Bane's voice, wasn't it?

“Is that you?” the Reverend asked through the closed door. 

“Yes. Don't shoot me.”

The Reverend unlocked the door and opened it. Seeing Bane was such an immense relief I could have hugged him. I didn't, though.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

He nodded. “Are you all right?”

It was my turn to nod. The Reverend handed him his gun back.

“Is the town burned to the ground?” he asked.

“No. A couple of places burned, though. It was a big shipment, close to sixty people.”

Sixty? The group I had arrived with hadn't been anywhere near that large. 

“No one knew they would be that many?” the Reverend asked.

“No. Barsad heard about it, but by then they had almost reached town.”

The Reverend shook his head. 

“Many dead?”

“Some. Stephen and Antonio.” 

I assumed they were people they both knew.

“And Alain's wife” Bane said. 

I thought of the woman who had handed me that cup of hot chocolate. 

The Reverend sighed. 

“Did you see Jenny?” I asked. “Or Charlie?” 

“Jenny was home. Charlie came down and helped get things under control. He's all right.”

Bane looked at me and I looked back. 

“We're going to take care of some townspeople tomorrow” he said, turning to the Reverend again. 

By the tone of his voice I gathered he didn't mean people who needed help, but rather the opposite. 

“I guess we all need some rest, then” the Reverend said, eventually.

“The car burned” Bane said to me. “We're walking.”

“You're welcome to stay” the Reverend said. “The offer being what it is, I only have the floor.”

Bane looked at me and I shook my head. I wanted to go home.

It was dark outside now. It was mostly quiet, but I could smell smoke on the wind. We started walking. I had difficulties seeing where I was going and took Bane's arm. After a little while I slid my hand down and took his hand instead. 

Maybe it was because I'd been so frightened, maybe it was because I wanted to say thank you for making sure I was safe. It didn't feel as strange as I would have imagined, walking hand in hand with another man. His hand was big and warm. 

The walk home took a while and when we got to the house I was exhausted. The tension had taken its toll. I went straight to bed and after a short while Bane came upstairs too. I lay awake for a while. I thought about the guy being raped, his anguished scream. I felt sorry beyond words for him, but at the same time I was so relieved it wasn't me. It easily could have been.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning Bane had already gotten up when I awoke and he was in the kitchen, slicing bread, when I came downstairs. 

“I have to go into town” he said. 

“Okay. Can I come?”

He nodded. “I can't find anything in the pantry. You've moved everything around.”

I smiled. “My system is better.”

He met my gaze. It was a peculiar moment; for a second it felt as if I liked him, but I didn't like him, I just didn't want him to die because then I wouldn't have anyone to protect me. 

I looked away and poured myself some tea. 

After breakfast we walked to town. Not holding hands this time. He hadn't said anything about that, and I didn't know what to say. 

The road was mostly dry and the sun was shining. The air was crisp, but not cold. There was still snow in the ditches but the field to our left was bare, dark earth. Maybe something had grown there before winter, I couldn't remember, I had hardly ever been out here then.

“Can you get a new car?” I asked.

“Probably.”

He had always been here. It was mind-blowing, almost impossible to comprehend. There was so much he had never seen or experienced. His childhood must have been weird beyond belief. I didn't want to bring it up, or ask about it, because I was pretty sure he wouldn't appreciate it if I did. 

The town didn't look the same. A couple of buildings had burned, one of them almost to the ground, a few others only in part and there was soot everywhere. The smell was overwhelming, acrid and smoky. 

There were people out and about, some of them just staring at the devastation, but there were also some who had already started to clear out the debris. I felt uneasy, thinking about what had happened here yesterday, of which I had only seen a small part. Over the last months I had almost fooled myself into thinking this was an ordinary town. I had looked forward to going to church and seeing Jenny, and to making errands with Bane, seeing people and hearing some voices. 

I missed my home. My own, real home. It ached inside, like physical pain. 

“Are they going to be able to rebuild?” I asked as we made our way down main street.

“Yes.”

“Why set fire to the place?” I felt disgusted by it all.

“Keep your eyes down.” Bane met my gaze for a second, until I looked down. Shame flared up inside me. I hated that he reminded me of my place like that.

More and more people gathered and a little before noon I stood in the crowd next to Bane, front-row seats as it were, as they executed five men. They were townspeople who, during the riots, had made some sort of attempt to take what wasn't theirs – property, power, women, I didn't know what exactly – but they had pissed off the wrong people. The wrong people being Bane, Bruce Wayne, and their men. 

Bane didn't tell me to keep my gaze lowered now. It was Barsad, the guy who came to the house on the yellow horse sometimes, who kicked the chairs out from under them. One after one they fell. I could see Wayne standing in the crowd on the other side, but he wasn't looking my way and I didn't let my gaze linger in case he'd turn his head. 

I had never seen someone die before, never even seen a dead person, but these five I saw, time and time again, since they let them hang there for weeks. A reminder to everybody whose authority they had to abide to.

I felt drained of energy somehow, my spirit running low, but Bane made me go to town with him every day. At first this surprised me, he was busy, but then I noticed how other people seemed to keep their wives close as well. They weren't sure the disturbances after the riot had fully died down, but things stayed calm.

Lumber was being brought into town. A lot of people pitched in, helping to rebuild. Maybe because they wanted to keep their town, their civilization such as it was, or maybe because they wanted to prove their loyalty. I saw men I knew worked for Bane, carrying rifles, and others who I thought were Wayne's people. I also noticed that Bane and Wayne spoke as little as possible to each other. 

It was only the men who worked, which struck me as unbelievably stupid, the rebuilding would go faster if everybody helped. But as I stood there, watching, it dawned on me. It was about power. If people like me would be allowed to work, it would be much harder to keep us under control. It was the same as for women in the real world – if you couldn't support yourself you had no autonomy, no influence. Out here there was no work for women, except for prostitution, but that was slavery.

I could fetch water from the well at home, or chop wood, because I was still so obviously under Bane's thumb, but if I had been carrying beams or raising walls out here with everybody else, keeping up the appearance that I was different would have become much more difficult.

I was amazed that I could see the system so clearly in my head, but it only put me down. I felt desolate, knowing I would never be free. I was in a bad mood and Bane noticed, putting him in a bad mood too. I hated that I was dependent on him for everything, for food, for clothes, for a place to sleep at night. I hated him and his belief that he was somehow better than me.

There were a number of funerals as well, and we attended a couple of them. I didn't even know the people who had died, but Bane had brought me to town so I stood there by the holes dug in the ground, listening to Reverend Gordon read bible passages. Not a lot of people showed up for Alain's wife, but we were there. I watched Alain, not caring that I stared, wondering if he had truly cared for her, or just thought her a slave. 

Bane didn't let me go to church the next Sunday and I got angry.

“It's the only thing I ever ask you for!” 

“There's work to do.”

“The reason I haven't done it is because you've made me go to town every day!”

“You'd rather I let you stay here by yourself? We don't know if there are people still loose on the island.”

He stared at me. 

“I can take care of myself!” 

“You can go next week.”

“It's not fair!”

His eyes flashed.

“You think anything is fair? Nothing comes for free.”

I glared at him. 

“You don't know what it's like, having someone else decide everything for you” I said. 

“No. But I work for what I've got too, and I share that with you.”

Even though I don't have to, were the unspoken words. 

I did the things that had been left undone for the last week and Bane worked around the house too. 

“Make chicken for dinner” he said.

“You get one then, I don't want to” I said. 

A little later he came into the kitchen and put a chicken on the counter.

“How would you take care of yourself, when you can't even kill a chicken?”

He said it almost fondly, but I resented it all the same. Where I came from, where I belonged, you didn't need to be able to kill to survive.

**

A few days later was laundry day and I thought I would go down to the river. The water would be icy cold, but it had been so in the autumn as well, and I hoped that maybe one of the others would be there. I hadn't seen Jenny since the riot so I hadn't gotten a chance to ask him when they usually picked it up again.

I wasn't sure Bane would let me go, but he did. He put a knife in my bundle of laundry, folding the clothes over it.

“Don't let anyone see you've got that” he said. 

I nodded, stunned he'd given me a weapon. 

“I mean it” he said. “It's important.”

I looked at him. “Yes” I said. 

When I got down to the river the bank was empty. I was disappointed. I hesitated, not sure if I should head back or wait for a little while. 

I jumped when I saw movement in among the trees. I gripped the handle of the knife between the clothes, but then I saw that it was Jenny and I could breathe again. He came walking towards me, smiling. 

I put my laundry down and hugged him. 

“It's been some week, huh?” he said when I let go again. 

“Yeah...”

“Sometimes this is such a shitty place.”

I thought it was a shitty place most of the time. 

“I don't think the others will show up” he said.

I hid the knife away when Jenny had his back turned, putting it in my sock. As we worked, my fingers quickly going numb, we talked about everything that had happened. Jenny usually knew a lot more than I, but this time I knew some things he didn't, since I'd been in town so much. 

“Charlie didn't hesitate, letting you coming here today?” I asked.

I didn't know if Bane was being overprotective. Letting me have a weapon, which was strictly forbidden for women, did signal some genuine worry, though. Also, Beatrice and Audrey hadn't showed up. 

“Sure he did” Jenny said. “But then I made him happy, and then he let me.”

The euphemism was easy enough to catch. I looked down at the dress I was scrubbing.

“You don't mind it?” I asked. Jenny didn't reply right away. 

“I'm gay, actually” he said then. 

I turned my head and looked at him and he glanced back. I was shocked, for some reason the possibility hadn't even crossed my mind. 

“Does that bother you?” he asked.

“No.” It didn't, I just felt... cheated, somehow. 

“Charlie isn't, though” Jenny said. “But he likes me.” 

“Do you love him?” 

Jenny put one shirt away and picked up another.

“Yeah” he said. 

I was astounded. I had assumed Jenny's life was like mine, that living with a man was as alien to him as it was to me. 

“I didn't at first” he said. “It's not the same as out there, in the real world, but...” He shrugged a little. “He's a good man, actually. He's not cruel.”

He looked at me. 

“Don't tell anyone” he said, his voice and face serious. “It's better if people believe they beat the crap out of you and rape you day and night.”

I nodded, feeling a bit shaken. 

When we had finished with the laundry I was shivering. Jenny put his hands in the pockets of his dress. Somehow he didn't look as silly as the rest of us, maybe because of his slight build. He had a belt around his waist and he, astonishingly, looked pretty good. I realized I was envious. I wished I could look that confident, so that I wouldn't have to feel so ridiculed all the time. 

“I could really use some pockets” I said. It was extremely annoying not to have any, having to carry everything in my hands all the time.

Jenny smiled and looked down at himself. “They're easy to make” he said.

“You've made that dress yourself?”

“Yes. But you could probably sew some into that one too, here at the seam, you see?” 

I had sewn some buttons and mended a couple of Bane's shirts, but I didn't know how to sew. Didn't know much of anything, as it was, not compared to Jenny. I wondered if Bane thought me a disappointment. What if he decided he didn't want me around anymore?

“Could you teach me to sew?” I asked. 

“Yeah, I don't know... how and where?”

“I can ask Bane, if he'd let me come to your place. It's for housework, after all. Do you think Charlie would mind?”

“I don't know. I'll ask.”

He looked at me. 

“Just don't think that it's like out in the real world” he said. “It would be a mistake.”

“Yeah, I know.”

I wasn't sure how I was going to put the question to Bane. I did want to learn how to sew, but no matter what I had said to Jenny, I was more excited about getting to hang out some more with him, and I didn't want that to shine through. 

Eventually I just asked.

“No” Bane said.

I was surprised. I had actually expected him to say yes. But most of all it was a disappointment.

“But I could make my own clothes. I could make clothes for you. It must be cheaper?” 

He didn't say anything. I tried not to get angry, knowing that would only piss him off and I'd have no chance at all to get what I want. 

“But you visit people” I said.

“That's different.”

Of course. He was a man, and I wasn't. I had a sour taste in my mouth. What Jenny had said echoed in the back of my mind, make him happy and then he might let me. But I couldn't bring myself to do that. 

I had been in Alain's house that one time, but Bane had been with me then. The only person I had visited on my own was Reverend Gordon, and that had been a matter of emergency. Bane did make him an exception to the rules, though, I was allowed to talk to him. Maybe part of it was that the Reverend had helped raise him, but some of the other older men around here, like Alain, had too. 

“Do you know Jenny's husband at all?” I asked. “Maybe you could visit him, and I can come?”

“Stop talking.”

“But...”

“I've said no, I don't need to repeat myself.”

He looked sternly at me. I had to drop it.

I was cleaning the kitchen a few days later when I looked out through the window and saw Charlie in the yard. My heart nearly jumped up to my throat. He was talking to Bane.

I couldn't go out there so when Bane finally came inside I was bursting with curiosity, and worry. 

“What did he want?” I asked.

“To trade his wife's services.”

“Trade how?”

Bane was watching me.

“She'll teach you to sew.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Some tools.”

Jenny, you're brilliant, I thought. If I could do that, somehow make him think something was his idea, I'd be able to do a lot more. 

“You have tools?” I said.

“I have lots of things, not least an insubordinate wife.” 

He wasn't angry. That was a joke. He wasn't particularly funny, but all the same.

“I thought it would be good to learn” I said. 

There was another reason the whole thing needed to be a business transaction, arranged by the men. Neither one of them was willing to leave their wife alone in the presence of another man. It was annoying, but I wasn't about to complain now that I'd gotten what I wanted. 

Soon thereafter, just past noon one day, Charlie and Jenny showed up outside our house. I followed Bane out on the front porch. 

“Hi” Charlie said. 

Bane nodded in response. He wasn't hostile, but he wasn't friendly either. I didn't know how well he knew Charlie. Charlie had been here for at least twelve years and lived not that far away. They were about the same age. 

I didn't think Bane had friends though, not really. I had heard some of the conversations he'd had with the men who worked for him, mainly Barsad, who came here most frequently. They almost only spoke about business. Now and then Barsad would tell some story that wasn't business-related, gossip basically. Bane listened, but truth was, the only person he seemed to really talk to was me. I hadn't thought of him as lonely before, but maybe he was. Maybe that was why he'd chosen to take me in and make me his wife.

I glanced at Jenny and he glanced back. We couldn't talk in front of the men. Right now they were exchanging a few words about the riot. Then Bane turned to me.

“Go on, you take Charlie's wife inside” he said.

I smiled at Jenny when he followed me inside. He looked around, curious. 

“This is a nice place” he said. 

“What does your house look like?”

“It's smaller, only one floor, but it's a good house.”

We went into the kitchen. 

“You've got a glass pitcher” Jenny said. “I really want one too.”

“Why?”

He shrugged.

“I like them” he said. 

I couldn't think of a whole lot of things I wanted, not things like that.

We sat down at the kitchen table, getting started on teaching me how to sew. Bane had, in one of the smaller rooms upstairs that was filled with random stuff, a few different textile fabrics and I had brought some of them down to the kitchen. He collected things to trade with and was paid for his booze and the weapons he sold with stuff too; most of our food was payment of some kind. There was money at the island as well, but it was harder to come by. You needed it if you wanted to get things from the outside. I hadn't fully gotten the hang of it all. 

Jenny was pretty good at this. 

“Where'd you learn?” I asked.

“It's not all that different from doing stitches.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I was a doctor” he said. “Before.”

“Really?”

“You sound surprised.” His tone was dry and I smiled. 

“Sorry.” 

I had never asked him what he'd done to get sent here. You didn't get a life sentence for some petty crime, though. Unless you were really unlucky, like I had been. I didn't want to know what Jenny had done. 

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Kansas.”

Jenny had suggested I made a shirt for Bane first, before making a whole dress. We used one of Bane's old ones to measure.

“He's a big guy” Jenny commented. 

“Yeah.”

“Proportional?”

The question caught me off guard. I kept my gaze on the table, I didn't want to talk about things like that. 

“I'm sorry” Jenny said quietly. 

Maybe I was overreacting. Bane didn't force me to anything, but of course everyone thought he did. Jenny had told me to let people think that, and I followed his advice, not telling even him that Bane got himself off without involving me. 

After a little while we got talking about other things. When it was about time I got started on dinner we packed up.

“I'll show you how to cut out the pieces to a dress and how to put it together next time” Jenny said. 

I already mourned the day when the sewing lessons would be over. Trying to be slow to learn probably wouldn't work, that meant Bane would have to pay Charlie more, more tools or other things, to get more lessons. He'd see through that, anyway.

Bane had gotten Charlie a drink, which was most likely appreciated. They were sitting on the front porch. 

“Next week, same time?” Charlie said and looked at Bane.

“Yeah, that'll be fine.”

I couldn't imagine what they'd been talking about, if they had been talking at all. I didn't know if Charlie was a chatty kind of guy, Bane sure wasn't. 

“Bye” I said to Jenny.

“Bye.”

I watched them leave, Jenny putting his hands in the pockets of his dress. I'd soon have one with pockets too. I found I kind of looked forward to that, so that was one thing I wanted, at least. 

“What did you two talk about?” I asked Bane, too curious not to. 

He 'hmm-ed' and I smiled. On a whim, I didn't even know why really, I leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. His beard was coarse and I could smell him, even for that short second, warm and surprisingly familiar.

He looked as if I had struck him. 

“I'm not allowed to do that?” I said, feeling stupid and a little angry. 

He didn't reply. He got up from his seat.

“Go on inside” he said. 

He was a jerk. I was trying to be nice. I was angry with him, all through making dinner and eating it too. 

The next morning it was raining. I could hear it patter against the window, even before dawn. The yard would be mud again, which was irritating. It got all over the floors, and I liked walking around without my shoes on, and then my socks got filthy. 

Bane moved a little next to me, awake now too. I was still thinking about mud when I felt his hand on my arm. I startled. He had accidentally elbowed me from time to time, and I unintentionally kicked him sometimes when I tried to get the cover over my feet – the bed wasn't very big – but he had never purposely touched me in bed before.

He pulled my hand towards him. I had kissed him, he'd taken that as an invitation. My first reaction was to pull away, fairly sure, although not entirely, that he'd let me go. His grip wasn't very tight, he wasn't rough, and in the end I just followed. What did it matter, anyway. It was what he wanted and I'd rather do it now, seemingly by my own free will, than be ordered to do it later. 

He wasn't circumcised, something I hadn't seen in real life, before him. He was already hard, the skin smooth and hot. I tried to tell myself it wasn't a big deal, even though I had never touched someone else's penis before and it felt utterly strange to do so. I was grateful it was still dark, so that I couldn't really see him, nor he see me. I tried not to think as I gave him a hand-job, touching him much in the same way I would have myself, even though he felt completely different in my hand. 

It seemed to take forever, but then he came with a heavy breath, spilling hot all over my hand and I felt somewhat disgusted. 

The sun was going to be up soon, and I didn't want to be lying here then. I got up, went downstairs and washed his semen from my hand. I couldn't believe I had just done that. It wasn't as revolting as I would have thought, but the crossing of the boundary of intimacy was massive. 

Much like everything else we didn't talk about it. I wasn't particularly surprised when he wanted another hand-job the next morning. 

**

It was raining heavily on laundry-day so it was no use going down to the river, but I got to see Jenny again at my next sewing lesson. I was surprised when Charlie didn't stay this time. 

“Is that okay?” he asked Bane and Bane nodded. 

Bane left me and Jenny alone in the kitchen, going round back to the barn. 

“I didn't think that ever happened” I said. 

“No, he hasn't done that before” Jenny said. “But people have a lot of respect for Bane.”

“People are afraid of him.”

“Yes, but it's not just that. I only know what Charlie has told me. You're the one living with him!”

“Yeah, I know.”

Did I ever.

“Charlie likes him” Jenny said.

“He likes him?”

“Yeah.” He looked at me. “You don't like him?” he asked, and his tone of voice was different now. 

I didn't know. I thought of when Bane teased me sometimes, in a way that was not cruel but instead rather fondly.

“Sometimes” I said. “But I'm not... you know...”

“I don't like every man I see, either” Jenny said. There was an edge to his voice. 

“No, I know” I said quickly. 

“I didn't choose Charlie. I didn't go to a club and fancy him, he didn't ask me out for a drink, or invite me for dinner. He just went to the docks because he wanted a wife and took me, because he thought I was pretty and looked like a girl.”

I didn't know what to say. Jenny looked a bit shocked that he'd said that. He looked over his shoulder, but the backdoor was still closed. 

“I thought that you loved him, though” I said after a little while.

“I do. Because I'm an idiot.”

It was quiet for a little while.

“No, you're not” I said then. “You're kinda clever.”

Jenny smiled a little at the fabric he was holding.

“Kinda?” he said. 

“Yeah, that's about as far as I'll go.”

He laughed. 

**

It quickly became routine to get Bane off in the morning. Sometimes the sun had come up, shining in through the window and making the room bright, but I didn't care much, unless he was watching me, then I ducked my head. 

He was hung like a horse, which I had chosen not to share with Jenny, because I was somewhat embarrassed that I knew, and also we hadn't talked about those kind of subjects again. 

“Can't you do it yourself?” I said when Bane reached for me one morning. I was tired and it took a bit of work after all. 

“I like it when you do it” he said. 

“How is my hand so different from yours?”

“It just is.”

I turned my head and looked at him. He wasn't bothered by any of this, didn't care that I watched him have orgasms. 

“You can touch yourself” he said.

I shook my head.

“No, I don't want to.”

It didn't cross his mind to offer to reciprocate the favor. I had gathered that much from what I had heard from other women – that was not how things worked. And I didn't want him to, either. I wasn't attracted to big, hairy guys and this was as far as I was prepared to go. 

“Go get the fire started then” he said. 

It was getting warmer and warmer every day. I washed off in the bathroom and then I put water on the stove, before I went outside to let the chickens out and collect some eggs. When I got back to the kitchen I began taking out things from the pantry and I nearly jumped out of my skin when a mouse ran across the kitchen counter. I didn't think, I just grabbed the closest thing, a frying pan, and hit it. 

“Holy crap!” I was equally amazed that I had managed to get it as I was disgusted. I lifted the pan an inch. I grimaced. That was gross. 

Bane came downstairs a moment later.

“What are you doing?” 

“Breakfast.” I lifted the pan. 

He smiled. 

“Good aim” he said.


	5. Chapter 5

Audrey didn't show up again for laundry day at the river. Jenny, Beatrice and I speculated and worried. Jenny had asked Charlie, but he didn't know, or wouldn't say. Jenny said Charlie didn't know Audrey's husband. 

“Do you know who Audrey is?” I asked Bane one day after breakfast. 

He didn't reply.

“She does laundry at the river sometimes, when I'm doing it” I said. “I think her husband is called Merle.”

“You shouldn't bother so much with other people” he said. 

“She hasn't come back since winter. I just want to know if she's okay. Come on, you know everything that goes on around here.” 

He looked at me. 

“She's dead” he said. 

I felt as if I'd been punched in the gut, a freezing feeling spreading throughout me. 

“What happened?” 

“I don't know.”

I hadn't gotten to know Audrey that well, he was a quiet, private kind of person, but it hurt all the same. Dead. Gone. It was so despairingly finite. The sadness that welled up inside me wasn't in proportion to the grief I was capable of feeling over Audrey. It was this place. The fact that I hadn't even known. It could have happened weeks, months ago, and no one would have told me, because our friendship was something that had to take place in the shadows and not be acknowledged. 

“You cared about her?” Bane said. He raised a hand, to touch my cheek maybe, but I moved away.

“No, don't touch me!” 

I couldn't read his expression. 

“Why didn't you tell me, if you knew?” I said.

“Because it's got nothing to do with us.”

I couldn't believe he'd say something like that.

“She was my friend! You must have known that, you sent me down to the river that day because you knew they'd be there!”

“I let you meet with other women so you wouldn't be alone so much.”

“Jesus Christ...” I closed my eyes for a second. “Are we even human beings to you? Am I?”

He just looked at me.

“You expect me to live just for you?” I said. “That pleasing you is the sole purpose of my existence? I'm a fucking person!”

“And you're my wife” he said, his voice stern.

“You think I don't know that?”

“You'd do well to remember it.”

“Fuck you.”

He hit me. I stumbled to the side from the force of the blow. Tears stung my eyes, from the pain, from humiliation or anger, I wasn't sure which. He left the room and moments later I heard the car start; he'd gotten hold of a new one a few weeks ago. 

My nose was bleeding and I had to press a rag to it for a while. I hated him, so much I was shaking with it. The knowledge that I was stuck here weighed down on me until I felt as if I couldn't breathe. 

Bane got back late and I was already in bed. I had a headache and my cheek felt tight and sore. The room was dark and I heard the familiar sound of his steps as he came into the bedroom. Maybe he knew I was awake, maybe he didn't, but neither of us said anything.

The soft morning light was falling in through the window when I woke up the next day. Bane hadn't gotten up yet and he was watching me. He reached for me and I turned to move away, he was insane if he thought I'd give him a hand-job today.

“Come here” he said, but his tone of voice wasn't demanding. I reluctantly let him pull me close, until I was lying next to him. It wasn't quite spooning, since I hadn't turned fully onto my side. His skin was burning hot and I could feel the hair on his chest against my shoulder. 

His arm was around me, his hand resting lightly on my chest. I felt tense, unaccustomed to and not entirely comfortable with the body contact. 

“You are my wife, even if you don't want to be” he said quietly. 

I couldn't see his face when we were lying like this. 

“I try to be kind to you” he said. 

“I used to be someone else” I said. 

He didn't say anything for a while. “I know” he said then. But he didn't. He had never known anything else. 

“Hitting me isn't kind” I said. 

“I know.” 

It was quiet for a while, then he caressed my hair. 

“You're so beautiful.”

I didn't know what to say. I was stunned he'd said that, it felt so out of character and it wasn't something I could identify with either. I felt conscious of my breaths, my chest rising and falling. The warmth. The living, breathing, human being behind me. 

Was he gay? Did that word even apply out here? I wasn't, though, and I had never been held like this by another man, telling me I was beautiful, before. That he liked when I jerked him off was somehow easier to grasp, to categorize. This – this was much harder. 

**

Finding out what had happened to Audrey didn't really matter, it wouldn't change anything, but I brought notes to church the next Sunday anyway, simply saying 'Audrey. How?'. Someone had to know something.

I was waiting for Bane outside a bar in town a few days later. It wasn't as big as Wayne's place and a lot simpler, just a small room with a bar and a couple of tables, which I had seen through the door when Bane went inside. Women weren't allowed in bars. He had gone in there to talk to someone, or possibly to have a drink with someone, but he rarely drank, not at home at least. By now everyone knew I was his wife and no one harassed me while I waited. 

The sun was shining from a clear blue sky and the street was dry, dust whirling up when a car or a horse came by. I was startled when a woman I didn't know showed up, put something in my hand and then quickly walked on, her husband a few steps further along. I looked down at my hand. It was a note. 'Went through the ice'.

Bane came out just then and I quickly hid the note in my pocket. He started walking and I followed, my mind an odd mixture of numb and sad. I thought of Audrey, falling into the icy, black water of the river, and I couldn't help but to wonder if he'd done it on purpose. 

I kept my gaze lowered.

“Do you need anything?” Bane asked when we came to the store. 

I shook my head. Women were allowed in the store though and I followed him inside. It was a trading place, rather than an actual store. People made things like buttons in their homes, then came here and traded them for something else, and the owner resold them. What they had in stock varied.

I listened to Bane talk to the owner and I could feel the dry texture of the note against my fingertips in my pocket. Knowing what had happened to Audrey didn't make me feel any better, it made me feel worse.

The man who had the store, Phil, had a ridiculous goatee that made him look like the villain in a western movie. He and Bane had agreed on a fair price when I spotted something on one of the tables. It was a pair of woolen socks, long enough to reach well above my knees. It was warm now, but come next winter I'd be freezing again. 

I wanted them, but I didn't want to ask in front of Phil. It would look bad if I made a demand when someone was watching, and I realized then, maybe for the first time, how aggravating and confusing all my outbursts and demands, that I had when we were alone, must be to Bane. 

Phil walked into the backroom though, to collect something.

“Bane” I said, keeping my voice down. “Can I have those socks?” 

He followed my gaze. “Hmm.”

Phil came back and Bane pointed to the socks. “What do you want for those?” 

“Well...” Phil picked them up. “What do you say about a half-a-dozen candles?”

“All right.”

Phil put the socks among the other items. 

“I'll come by tomorrow” Bane said as he picked them up.

“That'll be fine.”

Perhaps that's what Jenny had meant when he said Bane was respected. Phil trusted him to pay what they had agreed. 

I felt a kind of satisfaction when we walked back to the car. We had lots of stuff, could trade for anything we wanted. Booze was always in high demand, as there wasn't a whole lot of fun to be had around here. That's what made Bane and Wayne rich. People wanted to drink and they wanted to get laid. 

“I guess you'll be wanting to learn how to knit next” Bane said when we were in the car. He gave me an amused glance.

“Yeah, but Jenny doesn't know how to do that.” I looked at him. “Thank you.”

**

I was on my hands and knees in the garden patch a lot more this summer, pulling up weeds. There weren't just potatoes growing there now, but carrots, cabbage, beets, and turnips. I realized that was because Bane had me to help taking care of it now, he didn't have to do it all by himself on top of his other work. He had to teach me though, I had only ever had some long-suffering ferns on my windowsill in my life before this. An ex-girlfriend had given me those because she thought my apartment too sparsely decorated. 

It seemed so long ago. If anyone had told me then that I'd be doing the things I did today, I would have laughed or called them crazy. It was amazing, the things you could get used to. I was nice to Bane, jerked him off and let him spoon me. It felt weird at first when he held me, his arms around me and his chest pressed against my back, like I was pretending to be something I wasn't, but at the same time that was the tenderness I got. I was starved for human contact, and I suspected he was too. Late at night or in the early mornings, I could forget that his body and the closeness should have felt more alien.

When he asked me for a blow-job, however, I said no. At first.

He didn't put it like that, though. We were in the bedroom. I had just gotten upstairs, after having made sure the chickens were all locked away for the night, and Bane was sitting on the edge of his side of the bed.

“Anna, come here” he said. I walked over there, not really thinking anything about it because it was the same tone of voice he used when he wanted me to come lie closer to him in bed or when he wanted to show me something. 

I rounded the bed and he looked up at me. He took my hand and then I knew, somewhat, what it was about, because that was his way of saying he wanted me to get him off. He pulled me a little closer.

“Can you use your mouth instead?” he asked.

I was dumbfounded for a second.

“No” I said then.

He was disappointed, I could see it on his face. He had, in all likelihood, gotten blow-jobs before, and now he wanted me to do it, because he liked it. 

He was still holding my hand. “If I don't” I said, “will you make me?”

“No, I won't make you.” 

In his mind it must seem as if he got very little in return for the things he did for me, supporting me, allowing me as much freedom as he knew how to. I had heard whispered conversations in church, women asking each other for ointment, saying they were sore but their husbands wouldn't leave them alone. Other women, like Jenny and Beatrice, knew to be grateful that they had husbands. 

I had been here almost a year. If he grew tired of me, all he had to do was to go down to the docks the next time a ship came in and get himself a new wife. He was big and strong, he could easily win in a fight with other men, or even kill them, to procure someone who was more willing to please him than I was.

I had already crossed so many lines I didn't think I would ever cross. It was just me and Bane here, no one else would see, no one else would ever know.

“I don't know how to do it” I said finally. 

“You put it in your mouth.” Under different circumstances that might have been funny, that he thought I wasn't aware of the basic practice. “Come” he said and pulled me closer. He spread his legs and I got down on my knees between them. 

He was already visibly aroused. He worked on his pants with one hand, the other still holding mine. His erection looked enormous and this close I could smell him, acutely reminding me that he was a man. 

He gently wrapped my hand around the base, the feeling of it familiar beneath my fingers by now. I didn't look up at him, didn't want to know if he was watching or not, and then I put my lips around him. Feeling him, hot and smooth and salty, against my tongue made me freak out a bit. 

I tried to remember how this was supposed to be done, digging for memories of being on the receiving end, but I couldn't think. I tried to keep a rhythm, gagged once when I took him too far into my mouth. 

He was big and I didn't really know what I was doing and my jaw quickly began to hurt. It was wet and sloppy, saliva dripping down over my hand. This couldn't possibly be any good, he wasn't going to get off. But then I heard him sigh above me, an almost moaning exhale of breath and I remembered that having a mouth on your cock felt good, almost no matter what. But I wanted him to finish, because I didn't know how long I would be able to keep doing this.

He didn't warn me before he came, and came in my mouth. I moved away, even though it was already too late; the taste, salty and bitter, filled my mouth and I gagged a little before swallowing. I sat back on my heels and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. Bane wiped himself off with the cover, he usually did, he was tacky like that. 

Then he pulled me to my knees again. I had a hard time believing I had just done that. Having him in my mouth was so much more intimate than just taking him in hand. He looked at me. His eyes were a dark, green-gray color. Close up like this, when I couldn't really see the rest of him and there was an unguarded expression in them, he almost didn't look like himself. 

“You make me feel good” he said, touching his fingers to the side of my face.

He pulled me into an awkward embrace, the side of my face pressed against his chest. I had never hugged him before, when he held me I was always with my back to him, but now I did, slipping an arm around him, feeling that I had to steady myself somehow. I could hear his heartbeats. 

**

Reverend Gordon came to visit again. It was in the afternoon and the sun was beating down. Sweat was beading on his brow. I was home alone, but I asked him to sit down on the porch, where there was shadow, and brought him a glass of water. 

“Thank you” he said and smiled a little at me. 

“Should you be walking all the way out here, when it's so hot outside?”

“I'm not as old as you seem to think.”

I smiled. “Sorry.”

“Bane isn't home?”

“No. He might be back soon, though, I don't think he was going very far.”

“Out making deliveries?” 

I shrugged. The Reverend gazed out over the surroundings. He had a stack of books in his lap and I eyed them curiously. 

“This is a beautiful place” he said. 

I followed his gaze. 

“Strange, isn't it?” he said. “When you think about what this island really is. There are quite nice beaches too, out near the Muslim community.”

I wouldn't know, I hadn't seen very much of the island. He caught me looking at the books.

“Do you like to read?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“I'm afraid I can't give you these, I have intended them as a peace offering.”

“That's all right. I can read Bane's books.”

I couldn't own anything; everything I had was, strictly speaking, Bane's anyway. I sat down on the steps to the porch. Bane showed up shortly after. 

“Go inside” he said to me as he approached the porch. I did, but only just over the threshold. They were standing right outside the door, I could still hear them.

“I was hoping I could speak to you, just for five minutes” the Reverend said. 

“What do you want?”

“There's rumors going around, people have noticed our falling out, and I've been having problems with people who want the building.”

It was quiet for a little while.

“And what is it you want me to do about it?” Bane said.

“Well, if you're determined to hold a grudge, can you at least pretend to have dropped it?”

“I don't hold grudges.”

“Please tell me that is a joke, I have never met a more rancorous person in my life.”

“No, I don't hold grudges. People cross me, I kill them. Simple as that. So for your sake, you should be grateful we keep on pretending we never knew each other.”

“What about the church, you don't care about that? Your wife goes to the services.”

“You don't talk about my wife.”

I was almost holding my breath, standing absolutely still by the door. 

“I didn't educate you, so that you could be a savage” the Reverend said. “You're dragging him down too, have you thought about that? Do you even care about that?”

“Get off my front porch.”

I had just enough time to duck into the kitchen before Bane came inside. My mind was whirling. That's what their falling out had been about? Essentially, me? 

Of course it hadn't escaped my notice that the Reverend thought physical relations between men a particular sin. The most astonishing thing about that, to me, had always been that people were being murdered here, or executed, and he didn't speak out against that.

I chopped up vegetables while Bane sat at the kitchen table, working on some parts for his stills. He'd been with someone, or someones, before me, though. I could tell simply because he knew what he liked. It seemed he hadn't told the Reverend about that, though. Taking a wife made it harder to hide. Their relationship almost resembled a father-son relationship, just then. 

I put a bowl of tomatoes and onions on the table, to get it out of the way. Bane was focused on his work. 

“Did he leave the books?” I asked.

He didn't reply right away. “Don't know” he said then. 

I went to look outside. They were on the porch and I brought them inside, reading the titles. 

“He did” I said and put them on the table too. Bane didn't bother to look at them. 

I finished making dinner. 

“Have there ever been other ministers or priests here?” I asked when we had gone to bed. “Or has it always been just Reverend Gordon?”

“A few others have come here” Bane replied. He was reading.

“What happened to them?” I asked.

“They were killed.”

“Why?”

“They had committed horrible crimes.”

Oh. I hadn't thought about the perhaps most obvious reason for which a clergyman might be given a life sentence. Not even other criminals tolerated child molesters. 

I looked at Bane. 

“Have you ever met another child?” I asked. “Were there ever any others here?”

He didn't react to the fact that I knew he'd been here since childhood. Maybe he had counted on me having heard that somewhere by now.

“No” he said. 

“Do you remember anything from before you came here?” 

“No.”

It was difficult to grasp, but also infinitely sad to think that he had a mother somewhere, who had either given him up or had him taken from her. It hit me that I, astonishingly, had more reason to be here than he did. Then I remembered he had killed people.

“I lost my parents when I was a kid” I said. 

He turned his head to look at me. 

“I was in a few different foster homes, but it didn't work out. They didn't want me, I was too much trouble, or they were just interested in collecting the paycheck in the first place. I grew up in an orphanage after that, a boys' home... Do you know what that is?”

He nodded. “Like in Oliver Twist.”

“Yeah, it wasn't quite as bad as that. There was actually a priest there, who ran the place, and he was a good guy. He helped me get into college, so that I could make something of myself, have a good life...”

I drifted off.

“You don't think you have a good life now?” he said.

“It can't compare, Bane. I'm sorry. I know you take good care of me.”

He looked at me for a few more seconds, then turned back to his book. 

After a few days I couldn't resist bringing it up, even though that meant letting Bane know I had heard his conversation with Reverend Gordon.

“Aren't you going to help him?” I asked, over breakfast.

Bane didn't reply.

“The church is a good thing” I said. 

“There are others who can help protect it.”

“But he asked you.”

Bane looked at me across the table, clearly annoyed.

“What if I asked you?” I said. 

He just grunted in reply, but the next Sunday he talked to Reverend Gordon, standing on the steps of the church after service. I was standing right next to them and they didn't actually talk about anything of importance. If it was going to rain soon, someone's crop, a horse that had run loose down main street a few days ago. But people saw them, standing there, chatting. 

Then Bane and I left.

“Is there any water in the car?” I asked.

We stopped by the car, parked nearby the church, and Bane reached in and took out a bottle of water that he handed to me. It was a hot day, sweat was running down my back. The water was warm, but I was thirsty and it quenched it anyway. I handed the bottle back to Bane and he drank some too. 

We continued through town. Bane was going to talk to Barsad, he lived here in town, and left me to wait outside. It was very strange, when you thought about it, to see someone as frequently as I saw Barsad and yet I had never exchanged a single word with him. He didn't speak to me, out of respect for Bane, and I didn't speak to him. I had this mental image of him, of what he was like, based solely on the things he said to Bane. A hard man, but with a dark sense of humor. 

I wished Bane would hurry, I wanted to get out of the sun. I could see the porch of Wayne's place from where I stood. Even though it was in the middle of the day hookers were standing on the front porch, to entice customers to come in. It was Sunday, a lot of people took a day off from work on Sundays and came into town. 

I was startled when I recognized one of them, leaning against the bannister. Maybe I was wrong, I had only seen him one time, but no, that was Dennis. I hesitated. Wayne was nowhere to be seen. I quickly crossed the street, stopping just below where Dennis was standing on the porch.

“Hey, Dennis?”

He didn't look the same as I remembered. The brightly colored dress, the hair, and the rouge on his hollow cheeks were different, but it wasn't just that. He turned his gaze to me, and it was as if he was looking straight through me.

“Do you remember me?” I said. 

He didn't reply. He didn't seem recognize me, but more than that, he had a look of complete desolation on his face and I felt sick.

Then Bane was there, grabbing my arm and pulling me away.

“Don't talk to them” he said and he sounded angry.

“But I knew him.”

“Now you don't.”

He was pulling me along, towards the car. 

“Let go of me” I said. 

I felt such horrible, paralyzing pity. 

Bane did let go of my arm, but he glared at me.

“Keep your eyes down and walk to the car, right now” he said.

I started walking, not saying anything. Inside the car it was even hotter, and the stuffy air made me feel nauseous. 

“It could have been me” I said after a while, the knowledge eating away at me.

“It wasn't.”

I started crying. I didn't know why, I didn't even really know Dennis. 

We stopped in the yard outside the house and I was sobbing, ugly and shameful, and the tears burned my eyes as they welled up. 

Bane seemed to be at a complete loss. I turned away from him. I felt as if I had a desert inside me. 

After a moment I felt his hand on my shoulder and I resisted at first, but then I let him pull me close. He smelled slightly of sweat and of sun-warm skin. 

“You have so much empathy” he said. 

I couldn't determine if he meant that as a good or a bad thing. But he was wrong. I was crying just as much for myself. Sorrow and frustration that I was stuck here, and relief and gratefulness I had him, in equal measure. 

I straightened after a little while, wiped my hand over my face. I felt embarrassed now. 

“I have to go and water the garden patch” I said.

He seemed rather relieved by that, that I was okay again. And I was, wasn't I, I thought as I crossed the yard. Unlike Dennis. 

**

Bane made another trade with Charlie, for Jenny to teach me how to preserve food. 

“You can't possibly have known how to do this before you came here” I said to Jenny when we were in the kitchen.

He had to have shopped at the supermarket, just like I had. As a doctor he had probably made pretty good money, maybe he'd eaten at fancy restaurants. 

“No” he said. “Another woman taught me. She was old, I mean really old, we're talking Methuselah.”

I laughed. 

“And she was a well of knowledge. Her husband was blind, and obviously he was old as well, so they couldn't really manage their farm, and that was how they made their living, teaching other people how to do stuff. The men who come here aren't usually farmers to begin with. They don't know how to handle livestock or how to sow or anything.”

Bane knew a lot of things. He knew how to run a farm, although we only did it small scale, and he could make things and mend them. He didn't really need me, he'd gotten by just fine before me. Although, having me do things like the stuff I was learning now, would save us money. He wasn't exactly cheap, but he wasn't a big spender; not that there were a whole lot of things to buy here.

It was the things he didn't know that always caught me by surprise. Like when I tried to explain the Internet to him. He had read about it and I ended up having to settle for saying that it was like a giant library, but you could access it anywhere from a single book. Apart from a few exceptions, like the cars they had smuggled here, the prison was stuck in the pre-industrialized nineteenth century.

Spending time with Jenny like this was a luxury. We could talk freely, alone in the house, unlike in church when we had to whisper and only had a few minutes. When we met at the river Beatrice was usually there as well, and I liked him, he was kind, but he really wasn't all that bright. The conversations were different when it was the three of us. 

“What do you and the other women talk about?” Bane asked me later, when I was making dinner.

He sounded genuinely curious.

“We compare our husbands' dick-sizes” I said. I was in a good mood, having had fun hanging out with Jenny, and it just sort of came out.

He frowned.

“That was a joke” I said. “Of course we don't. But you needn't worry, you'd win that competition easily.”

He just shook his head.

“We talk about all kinds of things” I said. “Housework, stories, gossip. What do you talk to your friends about, it's probably not all that different.”

I looked at him.

“Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you hadn't grown up to be so big, and learned how to fight?” I asked.

“No” he replied.

**

A lot of times when I was getting him off I got an erection. It was just a primal reaction, the reptile brain's response to the awareness of sexual activity happening. I never did anything about it. That would make it seem as if I was having sex with him. I wasn't. I was being kind to him, doing him a favor, keeping up my end of the bargain. 

Bane had noticed, though. I had thought the looking down he kept doing was about seeing his own cock in my mouth or my hand, but apparently it was about more than that.

“Why don't you touch yourself?” he asked one day, out of the blue and it caught me off guard. 

He'd told me I was allowed to, that one time, but then he hadn't brought it up again. 

“I don't want to.”

“Why not?”

How could I possibly explain to him that there wasn't any resemblance between this and the times I'd been in bed with girls. Girls I had liked, girls I was attracted to. I didn't want there to be any resemblance. I liked him well enough, but I didn't want to be turned on by having his dick in my mouth. I could never feel about him the way I'd felt about girlfriends or the odd one-night-stand I'd had, because I wasn't attracted to him. 

I sighed. “Are you gay?” 

I wasn't sure he knew the word, except for the older, literal meaning, but apparently he did.

“No” he said. 

Of course not. Gay to him would mean he would be attracted to people like Barsad or the other men around here. He wasn't, he was attracted to me. It was such a mess in my head. 

“But you have to know there are real women, in the rest of the world” I said. “You must have seen a picture, or a drawing or something, sometime?”

He nodded. They'd be about as real as a picture of a gray, little alien was to me, though. 

“Sex is different in the rest of the world” I simply said. 

“But wouldn't it make you feel good?”

“No, it wouldn't.”

He let it drop, staying true to his word that he wasn't going to make me do anything. 

**

His book collection was very varied, it was apparent he'd taken whatever he could get a hold of. He'd read them all, but it was discernible from the degree of wear which ones he'd read a lot. I could easily understand that a book involving a lot of technical advances he didn't know anything about would be close to unintelligible to him. Of the fiction he had he liked the older books the best, things like Dickens, Steinbeck, The Iliad and, it was kind of funny, Brontë. 

It was mind-blowing that when he read those books he most likely pictured a man of slight build as Jane Eyre and the other women. That's what you did when you read, you filled the story with things from your own reality, things you could imagine. But it was also my saving grace that he did. 

Everybody else here had seen real women, and I had no idea how they'd treated them, but no matter how much they pretended that they had women here, they knew the difference. And a man who let himself be penetrated or put a dick in his mouth, no matter how involuntary it may have been, had debased himself, and was treated worse for it. 

Bane didn't think of us as equals, but he thought I was the same as Jane Eyre, in some capacity. 

We were in the sitting room, Bane was sitting on the sofa and I was kneeling between his thighs and I thought, maybe it didn't matter. I was painfully hard. I was fully clothed, which made me feel slightly less embarrassed about it, and I pulled up my dress a little bit, so that I could get my hand in underneath it. I didn't look up, knowing that Bane would be watching.

I moved my hand in quick strokes and it felt so good, I got a little distracted, trying to do both things at the same time and my breathing sped up, making it even more difficult. My orgasm hit me and I panted around him. That it was a sloppy blow-job didn't seem to matter, because Bane spilled in my mouth almost right away. 

I let go of him and looked down. I was a mess everywhere now. That I felt mortified now, after, didn't stop me from doing it again, and soon it became the norm. I got him and myself off at the same time, and it was our sex-life. It wasn't normal, I knew it wasn't, but I was participating in it anyway, because it felt good. Bane was happy about it too. He wanted me to feel good, and he thought this was how sex worked.


	6. Chapter 6

It was late in the autumn. I was by myself by the river doing the laundry, neither Jenny nor Beatrice had showed up. This would be my last time too, the water was icy cold, and if the others weren't here I might just as well do it at home, even though it was a drag hauling water to the shed. 

I heard voices and turned my head, then quickly stood up. I had never seen Merle, Audrey's husband, but I knew this must be him, because the woman standing next to him was wearing one of Audrey's dresses. 

He said something to her, pointed to the river bank, but stayed up there by the edge of the woods as the woman slowly walked down to me. I didn't say anything, I waited until I saw Merle turn around and head back in among the trees, then I turned to her. Her blonde hair was short, which meant she must be new. Maybe there had been a ship recently.

“Hi” I said. 

She kept her gaze lowered.

“Are you new here?” I asked.

She nodded. I guessed she was somewhere between twenty-five and thirty. He, I corrected myself.

“What's your name?” I asked. 

“David.” His voice sounded cracked.

“Yeah, um... I'm Anna. You should use your other name.” I hated that I said that. I was John, I would always be. 

“Audrey” she said.

That was fucked up. For a second I was at a loss for words.

“I can show you how to do the laundry” I said. It felt so horribly inadequate. She was twitchy, looked almost shell-shocked. I wished Jenny was here. 

I helped her do the laundry, trying desperately to think of things to say, some small words of comfort, anything. 

“Please, help me” she said when we were done. 

I met her gaze. 

“I'm so sorry” I said, feeling as if I had a big gaping hole inside of me. “I can't.”

I couldn't do a thing.

“Do what he tells you to” I said. “And try to come back next week. I'll be here. Okay?”

I didn't get a reply. 

Bane looked questioningly at me the next week, as I had collected the laundry and were going to go down to the river.

“Isn't it getting too cold?” he said.

“I can do it there this week too” I replied. 

I was at the river bank early, waiting, hoping that Audrey, this new Audrey, would show up. I hoped Jenny, or even Beatrice, would come too, but knew it was unlikely. 

Eventually there was movement in among the trees, and it was Audrey, a load of laundry in her arms. 

“Hi” I said, smiling a little at her. “How are you holding up?”

She looked down. She didn't have any bruises, that I could see.

“Does he treat you all right?” I asked. 

“He... he makes me do stuff...” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

I was not equipped to handle this. I didn't know what to say.

“Are you... hurt?” I asked. 

She didn't answer. I'd have to be a therapist to know how to approach this properly. I was so, so lucky, to have ended up with Bane.

“Are you physically hurt?” I asked. “I know you're hurting, and I'm sorry I'm asking, but has he raped you?”

She shook her head, then glanced up at me. She started to cry. “He makes me blow him!”

“Ssh! Keep your voice down.” I felt a little panicky, worried that her voice would carry to where someone could hear her. “I'm so sorry.”

She looked at my clothes. “You're doing it too?” she asked. “Pretending to be a girl?”

“Yeah. How long have you been here?”

“I don't know. He didn't let me leave the house at first. How do you stand it?”

I couldn't tell her my husband was a lot nicer than hers. And I had hated this place too, the constant humiliation and being trapped, I still did a lot of times.

“You just have to. It'll get easier. At least you get to come out now, and we can be friends. There are two others who usually come here too, but it's getting to cold to do the laundry in the river.”

I still had to do my laundry and she did too. The water was freezing and my fingers went numb. I didn't notice I had injured myself before I saw blood on the clothes. Inspecting my left hand I saw I was bleeding from a cut, no two cuts, on my left ring-finger and little-finger. They weren't very deep, I must have grazed them on a sharp rock. I sacrificed one of Bane's shirts and wrapped it around my hand. It would be easier to make him a new shirt, than a dress for me. 

“Listen” I said to Audrey as we were getting ready to leave. “I know it seems hopeless, but hang in there. I won't be able to come back until spring, but then I'll be waiting for you, okay?”

She nodded a little.

“You have to do what he tells you” I said. “People like us have no power here.”

I was trying to remember everything I had learned since I came here.

“Don't talk back, keep your gaze down when you're out in public. If you're good and keep him happy, it'll be easier for you too. You have to let him do what he does, I'm sorry, but he could hurt you or kill you and there is no one who can help you. And when you're... don't ever touch yourself, unless he has said that you can.”

I wished it had been early in the summer, or spring. Then we would have been able to meet once a week, the others would have been here. Now the long, isolated winter was in front of us. It was horrible how I had to practically abandon her. 

“I'll see you in the spring, okay?” I said. “I'll think about you. You're not alone.”

**

A week later my hand was hurting like hell. I had washed the cuts and made bandages. The wounds were small, but I kept them wrapped up anyway so that they'd heal, but it just ached more and more. I was so tired I could hardly get through the work I had to do.

“Let me see your hand” Bane said. 

I winced when he touched it. “I'll get the doctor” he said when he had inspected my fingers.

“Do you think it's that bad?” I asked.

“It looks bad. Why didn't you say something?”

It didn't look that bad to me and besides it wasn't as if the cuts were deep. 

The doctor wasn't in town, he was down south, having been called to another small settlement, and Bane said he'd sent Barsad to get him. 

I was fine, or close to it, one day, the next I had a bad fever and could hardly get out of bed. I was freezing, shaking, but Bane said I was burning up. I dreamed and dreamed, of strange, horrendous things as soon as I closed my eyes.

I felt pretty out of it when the doctor came. He was a small man, his back a bit bent as if he'd hunched over for a long time. I'd seen him in town before and thought that if Jenny hadn't been taken by Charlie so quickly when stepping off the boat, he might have had a chance to work as a doctor here. 

“She's got a fever all right” the doctor said. He looked at my hand and even the slightest touch hurt so bad I gasped. 

“You've got antibiotics?” Bane said.

“I do” the doctor said. “But not the strongest kind.”

“We see to it that you get what you need” Bane said, and I could hear the threat in his voice.

“I know, but people get sick and injured at random, non-predictable intervals. I've run out. And the next shipment isn't in a while. I could try the antibiotic I've got, but if it doesn't work the infection will have both spread and possibly become immune to the treatment. She'll probably have a better chance if I remove the infected limbs, and then she gets the antibiotic. But it's your call.”

He looked at Bane.

“No” I said. “No, I don't want that. Bane, please.”

He looked back at me, then at the doctor and nodded. 

“Do it” he said.

“No...” A wild panic gripped me, I tried to get up, move away, something, but I was too weak.

“Get her downstairs” the doctor said.

“No, Bane, no!”

He picked me up as if I was nothing. I struggled, but it was no good. He put me on the kitchen table. 

“Here” the doctor said, holding out two white pills to me.

“What about morphine?” Bane said to him.

“I don't have any. You'd probably have better luck with your Chinese contacts regarding that. Just get her to swallow the pills, she'll probably pass out anyway.”

“Fuck you, doc.”

I had never heard Bane curse before. 

“I don't want this” I said. I was crying, scared out of my mind. 

They made me bite down on something. I couldn't breathe, my throat constricted and every breath was shallow and quick. My head was spinning, making me feel sick. It was like a horrible nightmare, a horror movie, I remembered those. 

“Hold her down” the doctor said. 

I felt the pressure of Bane's hands. Then pain shot up my arm, so intense and sharp that white light flashed in front of my eyes and I screamed. 

When I came to I was lying in bed again. It took me a moment to realize where I was. Maybe it was another bad dream. Then the pain hit me. Sharp, throbbing, and nauseating. I moaned.

“It's over.”

Bane was by the bed. I was scared to look down at my hand.

“Why'd you let him do it?” I said. 

“I don't want you to die.”

I rolled over to my side, feeling like I might throw up, but I didn't. 

“You're going to get better now” Bane said. 

My hand hurt so bad, I cradled my arm, unable to keep a groan from escaping me.

“I hate you.”

“Yeah.” 

He was stroking my hair, and then he leaned down and kissed my cheek. Like I had done to him once. 

I lay there, unable to sleep because of the pain, but not really awake either. Still feverish. Then Jenny was there, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“Hi sweetheart” he said. 

I was sure I was dreaming. I looked up at him. 

“You're going to feel better soon” he said. “Bane got you the good stuff.”

I could see Bane, over by the door. 

“What?” I croaked.

Jenny had a syringe in his hand. He wiped the crook of my elbow with something cold, then I didn't feel anything, and then I did. It was like a soft cloud hitting my mind. 

The pain went away, and on top of that was the most amazing feeling. Jenny patted my, uninjured, arm, then he got up and left.

Bane showed up by the bed a while later.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“No.”

I was completely content, lying there. Comfortable. Kind of sleepy. 

I got another shot of morphine later, administered by Jenny, the next day maybe, I didn't know, and high as a fucking kite I felt all right. Then the pain came back, duller, but throbbing. My fever was going down, the antibiotics working their way through my system. 

I felt tired and sad. Bane changed the dressing on my wound, and brought me food and water while I was in bed, but I didn't want to lie there. I didn't like to use the pot, a real actual piss-pot that I didn't even know we had. 

Bane helped me get downstairs. I could walk, my legs were fine, but I felt weak and unsteady on my feet. My entire left arm felt weird. 

I visited the outhouse and then I washed in the bathroom, using a wet rag. Getting in the tub was too much work, although Bane would probably have helped me get the water. Using only my right hand was tricky, and my bandaged left hand looked horribly wrong. I avoided looking at it. 

After having put on clean clothes I was exhausted. That was all the energy I had. I dragged myself upstairs again. Bane was changing the sheets in the bed. 

“I need to lie down again” I said. 

I spent another day in bed, while Bane was out somewhere. In the evening I went downstairs and we had dinner which he had made; a stew that tasted pretty good and I felt a bit better after having eaten. 

“Why did you name me Anna?” I asked later, when we had gone to bed. “Where did you get the name?”

I hoped I wasn't wearing some dead woman's name, like the new Audrey was.

“I don't know. The Bible, maybe.”

He hadn't even thought it through. It was just the first name that popped into his head. It was still better than Audrey.

“Why, you don't like it?” he asked.

I wasn't touching that. I didn't have the energy to get into that discussion.

“It's fine” I said. “Are you religious at all? Do you believe in God?”

He was quiet for a long while.

“Maybe. I believe in things that I can see” he said then. “But there are a lot of things we don't understand.”

I waited for him to continue, but he didn't. He had, in part, been raised by Reverend Gordon. Surely some of that must have rubbed off. 

“You don't believe we're going to go to hell, for doing the things we do?” I said. 

“No.”

“Why not?”

Bane turned his head to look at me. The candle was still burning on the nightstand on his side of the bed, so I could see him.

“It feels too good” he said. 

I smiled a little. He smiled back for a second.

“Go to sleep” he said then. 

I wondered what they had done with my fingers, buried them or burned them or what, and then I felt morbid for thinking about it. The wound was healing fine, the doctor had come back to check up on me, but it didn't look fine to me. Missing two fingers made me feel a bleak sort of grief that I couldn't really explain. The worst thing was that I could still feel them, sometimes they itched, sometimes they hurt, but then when I looked down they weren't there. 

“What did you trade to have Jenny give me those shots?” I asked Bane.

“Don't worry about it.”

“How did you even know she was a doctor?”

He didn't reply. He just knew, like he knew a lot of other things. I turned back to the kettle and poured tea into two cups. 

“Do you think I'm repulsive now?” 

I didn't even know why I asked. 

“No” he said. 

He hadn't tried to start anything for a while, not since I'd been ill. 

“I wanted to give you time to heal properly” he said when I put one of the cups in front or him. “Is that why you're asking?”

“I don't know. Maybe.”

Was I asking for sex? It seemed outlandish. Especially if you considered that he didn't actually do anything, I did all the work. It was probably what it sounded like to him, though.

He took my hand, the uninjured one. 

“When you feel well enough, I want you” he said. 

I looked at him, then I leaned down. He pulled his head away. For a second I just stood there, then a horrible feeling of rejection spread through me.

“I just wanted to kiss you” I said.

“You can't.”

“Why not?”

He didn't reply. I was angry with myself for getting that stupid idea in the first place, what the hell did I even want to kiss him for? 

“You just can't” he said. 

“You don't have a problem with my mouth when it's on your dick.”

And then it hit me. That was it. Humiliation flared up inside. 

“You can get yourself off in the future” I said, shaking with anger, and then I went upstairs. If there hadn't been a foot of snow outside I would have gone out, anywhere to get as far away from him as possible. 

I lay down on the bed. I felt horribly cheap. He had been using me and that made me feel about as dirty as he thought me to be. 

I didn't speak to him for days, over a week, I was so furious. He tried a few times, started to say something, but I left the room. When he touched my shoulder, we were in bed, I shook him off.

“Don't touch me!”

When I was in a bad mood, he got in a bad mood, so he avoided me too. I felt such horrible regret over the things I'd done. The knowledge that I had willingly participated clung to me like something I wanted to wash off. I was losing my mind. 

On top of it all I only had three fingers on my left hand and I could feel myself slipping, sliding into a very bleak place. 

I was getting into bed, which I resented, sharing it with him as I had to do, when he came upstairs. I didn't look at him, just pulled the cover up, my back to him. I felt the mattress dip as he got in behind me, a slight tug at the cover as he pulled it over himself. 

“I'll kiss you if you want me to” he said. 

I stared at the wall.

“I don't want you to” I replied. 

There was silence for a short moment.

“Then what do you want me to do, so you'll stop this?”

I sat up and turned around.

“You make me feel like a whore!”

He looked startled for a couple of seconds, then angry. 

“You don't have any right to behave like this.”

“You think it was easy for me? Learning to do things with you? I'm not gay, I'm not attracted to men! But I did it anyway, because I don't have anyone else! And the sex we had was not normal, only you think that!”

He stared at me, still angry, but apparently at a loss for words. 

“I trusted you!” I said. 

He didn't say anything.

I lay down again, my back to him. There was nothing more to say. 

**

We were snowed in. Bane left the house on horseback, he'd gotten a horse, because it was impossible to drive. I couldn't get to church, maybe we could have both gone on the horse, I didn't know, but he didn't offer and I sure as hell didn't ask. I felt so claustrophobic I could have screamed. And it was dark all the time. I stayed in bed as much as I could. 

“You can't be like this every winter” Bane said when he came home, and found me under the cover. 

“It's your fault.” Even I could hear how irrational that sounded. 

He looked at me, but instead of getting angry he came over to the bed and sat down on the edge.

He took hold of my shoulders and I tried to shake him off. 

“Come here.” 

“No.”

He won though, stronger than I was, and pulled me into a sitting position, holding me close to him. I didn't want him to, but I felt too miserable, too resigned to fight him. 

“I didn't force you” he said.

“No, but you think I'm filthy for doing what I do to you, what I do for you.”

He didn't say anything for a few seconds, then he pushed me back a couple of inches and put his lips to mine. 

It could barely be called a kiss. It was rough, just our faces pressed together for a couple of seconds. Then he looked at me. I was too shocked to say anything. 

“I, um...” I began, but I didn't know what to say. I swallowed. “I'll come down and make dinner” I said, because I didn't know what else to say. I touched his hand for a second and then I got up.

He had, kind of, kissed me, in an obvious attempt to make things good between us again, but I didn't know how to react. I wasn't sure I wanted to kiss him. Everything felt so weird. I didn't know what I wanted. 

A couple of evenings later, when we had gone to bed, I turned to him. The candle was still burning on his nightstand. 

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” I asked, even though I sort of knew the answer.

He was watching me. “No.”

I moved closer. “I don't want you to do it if you think it's disgusting” I said. 

“You don't want to force me.” He wasn't smiling, but his eyes glittered a little bit.

“Yeah, no.”

“You can never tell anyone” he said and his tone of voice was serious.

“I know.”

I moved closer still. He was looking at me. When our faces were close I could feel his breath on my skin. The room felt so quiet. I put my lips on his, gently, and I could feel his stubble, scratchy against my face, but his mouth was soft. I pulled back an inch and he met my gaze. I had no idea what he was thinking. 

I kissed him again and he didn't protest or move away. Kissing a man was different, mainly because of the beard. Also, he obviously didn't know how to do this. I tilted my head to the side and put my hand on the back of his neck. It was strange, that even after everything, this still felt huge, intimate in a whole new way.

Our kissing was confined to the bed, where no one could see, but I didn't mind. It was nice, lying in bed, where it was warm even during the long winter nights. Bane quickly got the hang of it. He had very full lips, I hadn't thought about that before. I didn't get aroused, not at first, but he did. When doing this we were in a new, different position. I wasn't sitting between his legs, either on my knees on the floor or in the bed, and we weren't spooning either. We were holding each other and I could feel him, his erection, and when I got one he could feel it too.

I wasn't prepared when he rolled on top of me, pressing himself to me. I gasped, the friction felt good, and he seemed to think the same thing because he kept moving his hips, rubbing our erections together. 

The naked, skin to skin contact should have freaked me out, and in a way it did, but I didn't think, didn't stop to analyze what we were doing. I clutched at his back, moved my hips to meet his. That it wasn't my own touch made the feeling so much more intense, despite the lack of finesse. The thrusting movement, the warmth, my mind was spinning it felt so good. He was holding himself up on his hands and I could see him, the pleasure reflected on his face. 

I was lost in my own pleasure, I could feel my orgasm begin to build at the base of my spine, and I moaned when I came. He came too, moments later, his eyes scrunched shut. 

He caught his breath for a fraction of a second, before rolling off me. I had semen, his and mine, all over my stomach. I had to wipe myself off so I got up, the air in the room appallingly cold, and grabbed a pair of underwear that were ready to be put in the laundry. When I got back to the warmth under the cover Bane was lying on his back, staring at the wall opposite the bed. 

“I liked that” I said after a while, because I felt I had to say something. 

He didn't say anything. He was looking at the wall, at nothing, not at me.

“Did you like it?” I asked.

He nodded a little.

“Have you done that before?” I asked.

He didn't reply right away.

“No” he said then. 

Even though he had been the one to instigate it, he didn't want to talk about what we were doing, not like his outspoken way when he'd asked me to do different things before. In a way I understood, it was such a taboo that he did that to me, touched me there, but it still made me feel vaguely resentful. At the same time I was shocked by myself too, surprised that he could make me feel that good. It was a lot more like real, actual sex, and I was having it with him.

When I saw him during the days, fully clothed, looking like his ordinary self, I had a hard time believing I was panting underneath him in bed at night. 

None of this kept us from doing it, though.

**

The snow began to melt, slowly receding and revealing black earth and dead, brown grass. I was in the barn, feeding the horse, when I heard a car engine. I could see it, through the chink of the door, as it stopped in the yard, but no one got out. My heart began to beat a little faster. I stayed where I was, watching. A long moment seemed to pass, then one of the doors opened and Bruce Wayne stepped out. Another man was still sitting in the car.

A horrible sense of dread spread through me. I remembered the beating, the doubled over belt connecting with my back, with terrible clarity. Even now, after everything I'd been through, he represented all the things I feared about this place. 

I didn't leave the horse box. I watched him look around a bit, then knock on the back door of the house. Bane wasn't home. Why couldn't he have been home? I tried to calm myself; even if Wayne found me, he wouldn't do anything. He wouldn't dare. But what if he did? 

He turned towards the barn and I backed away from the door, my heart beating wildly in my chest. I quickly left the horse box. As fast and quietly as I could I climbed up the ladder to the loft. There wasn't much to hide behind there, as the barn wasn't used much. I crouched down behind an old, moldy pile of hay. 

I heard him come in. 

“Hey there” he said and panic gripped me, before I realized he was talking to the horse. 

I hardly dared to breathe, the seconds dragging by. Eventually he left, I heard the car leave, and after a moment I went back down. I didn't see anyone, anywhere. I felt ashamed of myself, of my fear. 

I told Bane about it when he got home, admitting that I had hidden in the loft, but leaving out the crippling anxiety I had felt. 

He watched me. “What did he do to you?” he asked eventually.

“Nothing” I said. 

He kept watching me.

“You know” I said. “He beat me with a belt.”

He had seen the bruises, when I first got here.

“What else did he do?” he said. 

“Nothing. Nothing like that.”

I met his gaze. “It's the truth” I said. 

He nodded a little. 

“Can you stop him from coming here?” I asked. 

“I'll find out what he wanted.”

“You don't like him either, is it because of me?”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I've never liked him.”

**

My hand was still causing me trouble. It had healed fine, but I had phantom pains. They came and went. Sometimes I when I gripped something I dropped it, because I couldn't hold it the way I had expected to. 

But spring was coming, and nothing could dampen my excitement at meeting my friends again. I had thought about Audrey, though not as often as maybe I should have. I hoped she'd be back, that she had made it through the long winter months. 

As I got down to the river Beatrice was there at the bank. She smiled when she saw me.

“Hi!”

I smiled back.

“Hi.”

Then Audrey showed up. She looked thin, a little pale. 

“I didn't think you'd come back” she said, revealing that she'd been here last week too, or even earlier.

“Shit, what did you do to your hand?” Beatrice said.

“Yeah, I... injured it, and it got infected.”

“That looks creepy as fuck” Audrey said.

I turned my eyes to her, irritated but also self-conscious. I wouldn't have been here in the first place, putting my hands in the freezing water, if it hadn't been for her. But it wasn't her fault, I knew that. 

“Thanks” I said. “That's really nice.”

She looked a bit ashamed, at least. “Sorry.”

“Who are you?” Beatrice said to her, not sounding all too pleasant.

“Audrey.”

“What?”

“We met last year, before winter” I said. “Merle's her husband.”

“Wow. He named you Audrey?”

Audrey nodded a little. 

We got on with the work, Beatrice telling me about her winter, and I telling her about mine, leaving out rather a lot of things. Audrey didn't say much. 

Jenny didn't show up and I had to ask Bane about her that evening. It was Jenny, I couldn't stand not knowing if something had happened to her.

“She's fine” he said.

“Have you seen her?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I've seen Charlie. I would have known if something had happened to her.” He looked at me. “You care a lot about her.”

“Yeah.” I said. I put the potatoes I had peeled in the pot on the stove. 

The realization crept over me slowly, like a suspicion rather than actual knowledge. I remembered a girlfriend I'd had, telling me that I was bad at expressing emotions.

“I care about you too” I said. I didn't know if that was what he wanted to hear. He was a guy, I was a guy, you'd think I'd know exactly how he was thinking, but I didn't. 

I didn't hear him, but suddenly he was right behind me, slipping an arm around my waist and leaning down close to my ear.

“You're a fine woman” he said.

I wasn't a woman at all, but the moment was sweet all the same, he was telling me he cared about me too.

Jenny showed up at the river the week after that, but the atmosphere during laundry days were different now, the dynamics had changed, because of new Audrey. I missed old Audrey or, shamefully, wished it had just been Jenny, Beatrice and I. 

New Audrey was angry, I understood that, but it felt as if she was taking it out on us. 

“You like it, don't you?” she said one day. It was just she, Jenny and I at the river, Beatrice hadn't showed up today. “You're fucking faggots, both of you.” 

I just stared. I didn't know what to say.

“You have no reason to talk that way to us” Jenny said, calm but with a steely tone in his voice. 

“Yeah? You probably suck each other off, too.”

I was shocked and I didn't know what she was talking about. There was absolutely nothing like that between Jenny and I. Even though I knew Jenny was gay, there wasn't a hint of confusion, neither on his or on my part, there never had been. 

“Shut your fucking mouth” Jenny said.

“You like having cocks rammed down your fucking throats!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I said, feeling mildly panicky that Audrey knew something, somehow, something she couldn't possibly know anything about. 

“I'll tell everybody” Audrey went on. “I'll tell them how you fuck each other, and probably everybody else you meet too!”

It was incomprehensible, what she was saying, and why she even would.

“Shut up!” I said. 

“I'll tell on you! I'll tell Merle you made me suck you!”

She was insane, having a breakdown, or something. But I was panic-stricken. It wouldn't matter if Bane believed me, if anyone believed Audrey, both Jenny and I would be in deep trouble.

“You're a fucking liar!” I said.

“I'm gonna tell him!”

“You're gonna get yourself killed too!” Jenny said, sounding as horrified as I felt.

“I'll tell him how you made me choke on it!”

She started to back away, and I pounced. Jenny was there in a second, and we wrestled her to the ground.

“I'll tell!” she screamed. 

Blood was rushing in my ears. She'd lost her mind. She was going to tell those lies and I'd be dead. Panic surged through me. She was still screaming, about how we've made her, I was petrified someone would hear her.

Somehow we got her, struggling, to the waterline, and we held her under. I wasn't thinking. Or maybe I was. I knew she couldn't be allowed to say those things, to Merle or anyone else. It seemed to go on forever, but eventually she stopped moving. 

My mind felt completely blank. I looked at Jenny, who looked back at me. His eyes were big, expressing the same shock I felt. 

“We have to push her in” I said, hearing myself as from a distance. 

She was heavy, until we got her properly into the water. I was home alone, so I went into the water, getting soaked, pulling her along with me, as well as her laundry, until the stream took her. I was so scared that someone would see. Then I swam back to where Jenny was waiting at the shore. 

I was breathing heavily, feeling as if I was going to throw up. 

“She'll wash up further down” Jenny said. “The bank is steeper there, it'll look as if she fell in.”

He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself, as much as me. I nodded. 

“We have to go” I said and he nodded.

I walked home. Changed my clothes. I felt sick. There was a icy-cold ball of horror burrowed in my chest, and it stayed there. I was petrified someone would find out, figure it out. Scared that Merle would show up here, demanding to know what happened to his wife, or even accuse me of killing her.

I couldn't take in that I had killed someone, and at the same time it weighed me down, until I felt as if the anxiety would choke me. 

No one showed up. I didn't hear a thing. Jenny and I saw each other at the river bank the next week. I met his gaze, but neither one of us said anything. Beatrice was there, but I wasn't sure we would have anyway. 

Beatrice speculated about Audrey's absence the week after that, not coming anywhere near the truth, but she didn't make it a secret she was glad Audrey wasn't there. I felt so horribly guilty, like nothing I had ever felt before. 

Bane noticed I wasn't myself. I was quiet, didn't manage to keep up the appearance of being okay, and I didn't want to have sex. 

“What's the matter with you?” he eventually asked. “Are you unhappy again?”

I shook my head. He was watching me and I wished he would stop, tried to will him to go away, do something else. 

“Tell me” he said, taking my arm and making me face him. 

Being ordered to tell the truth made it practically irresistible to do so. I couldn't keep this up. It would never, ever go away. 

“I killed someone” I said, whispering.

“What?”

I gazed up at him. I was scared, of him, of what he might do, of myself. 

“Another woman” I said. “At the river.”

He was staring at me. I looked down. 

“Who?” he demanded.

“Audrey. The new Audrey.”

It was so quiet I could hear him breathing. 

“Why?” he said.

“She was telling lies, said she'd tell Merle.” 

“Lies?” He sounded impatient.

“About me, saying I'd made her do stuff... I didn't mean to, I just... I was so scared.”

“Tell me what you did.”

And I did. I told him about how Audrey had gone crazy, and then about punching her, and holding her under, dragging her out into the water to be taken away by the river. Saying it out loud made what had seemed almost like a nightmare become horribly real. 

“You did this all by yourself?” he said.

I nodded, but I could tell he didn't believe me. I could hear it myself, how my story didn't ring entirely true, even though it was impossible to say why, but he had picked up on it. 

“Who else?” he said.

“Jenny” I admitted. 

He was silent for a second.

“You can't tell anyone about this. Ever” he said then. “If it comes out, I won't be able to protect you.”

I nodded. I was so ashamed, sick with guilt. 

I grabbed his arm, unable to look him in the face. 

“I'm so sorry... I feel so bad...”

I started to cry, the anguish I had inside pouring out.

“You did what you had to” he said. 

I knew that, at least part of me did, but it didn't make me feel any better. After a moment he pulled me to him and held me for a little while. 

I didn't know if Jenny had told Charlie. We never spoke of it.


	7. Chapter 7

“I'm not going to be able to make enough food to fill all these” I said as I picked up as many jars from the bed of the truck as I could carry.

“We're gonna use them for the whiskey” Bane replied.

We'd gotten hold of a lot of glass jars, complete with metal lids. 

“But I can have some of them?”

He nodded. I started towards the house, and dropped the jars, glass shattering, when a man stepped around the corner. I turned immediately, but he grabbed me from behind, one arm around my throat. 

Several men came at Bane, they seemed to come out of nowhere, swarming. I struggled, tried to kick, threw my elbows back, but the grip around my throat was strong, it wouldn't budge. I screamed, strained and panicked, as I watched Bane fight the men who were attacking him. The crunching sound of blows was loud in my ears.

I didn't see the knife, only that there was suddenly a lot of blood on his face, but he was still throwing punches. For a second I thought he might be able to fight them off, he was big and terrible, but he was just one man and they were so many. 

I thrashed, trying to get free, unable to breath, panic and fear and blood-hot rage surging up inside me. Then one of the men slashed a knife across Bane's throat, and when they let go of him, he fell. 

I stared. Maybe I screamed. One of the men came at me and punched me in the stomach. I doubled over. The man who had held me must have let me go, because I fell to the ground. I tried to get over to where Bane was lying, bleeding. He wasn't dead, he was moving, his hands at his throat. But I was kicked in the side and pain shot through me, sharp and blinding.

Rough hands forced me, face first to the ground. I tried to get away, but they held me down.

“Let's see what Bane's whore is like” one of them said. “Has he fucked you useless, or are you still tight, huh?”

They pulled at my skirt. The roar in my ear was so loud I didn't hear the cars, almost didn't hear the shouts, the shots. I felt desoriented. When I wasn't held down anymore, I made my way, half crawling, over to Bane.

There was such chaos, I didn't know what was happening. He was alive, awake. There was blood everywhere. 

“Oh god...” I didn't know what to do. I met his gaze. He was holding his throat and I put my hands on his, getting warm, wet, blood on them, but I had no idea of what to do. “No...”

Then someone was by my side. 

“Get the doctor!” he roared.

It was Barsad, he was pulling off his jacket, then he turned to me.

“Go get that woman doctor” he said.

I was in too much shock to even be surprised he talked to me.

“Go! Now! Run!” he said.

I didn't want to leave Bane, not like his, but then I thought of Jenny. He'd know what to do. I got to my feet and I ran, even though it hurt where they had hit me, so bad I thought I might throw up. 

I didn't know exactly where Jenny's house was. I had only an idea of the general direction, based on where I'd seen Jenny go after we'd been at the river, and where he and Charlie had emerged from the woods when they'd walked over to our house. 

Please god, let me find it, I thought. I couldn't breathe, but I ran anyway. I doubled over for a moment and threw up, almost losing my balance, but I kept on running. And then I saw a house, in a clearing among the trees, a field behind it. I didn't know if it was the right one. It had to be, it just had to. 

I didn't knock, I just burst through the front door. Jenny and Charlie were sitting at a table, and they turned their heads to me, shocked expressions on their faces. 

“You have to come” I managed. “Please, come. Bane's hurt.”

It was just a second before they both rose to their feet. 

“What's happened?” Jenny asked. 

I couldn't answer, I was so out of breath. Jenny grabbed something and then they came with me. I couldn't run as fast, no matter how hard I pushed myself.

“Go” I said, and they did.

I was scared, sick with worry. I got to the house only a short moment after them, having run despite feeling as if I couldn't. There were men lying dead in the yard, but I didn't even look at them. Barsad and another man was crouching by Bane, trying to keep pressure on the wound without choking him. Charlie and Jenny were next to them.

“Get him inside” Charlie said. 

I was panting, dizzy. He can't die, I thought, please god, don't let him die. They got Bane inside and onto the kitchen table. He was horribly pale, and all that blood, was there any left in him? 

Jenny looked at Charlie and he nodded. It was only later that I realized what that had been about, Charlie giving him permission to touch another man. 

Jenny got to work. The rest of us had to keep Bane from moving. I had my hands on one of his arms, putting my weight on it, but he wasn't struggling, he was horribly still. He was awake through some of it, then he passed out.

Jenny stitched his throat up. Then the doctor showed up. He took care of the deep gash on Bane's cheek and gave him a shot of antibiotics. He questioned Jenny about the work he'd done, but I wasn't listening. 

Bane was still breathing. 

Barsad made a deal with the doctor about supplies, medicine, more antibiotic, painkillers. I was ready to pitch in, say we'd pay whatever he wanted, but it seemed Barsad had it under control and the doctor had everything that was needed.

Getting Bane upstairs to the bed would be close to impossible, so Charlie and Barsad brought the bed downstairs instead, and put it in the sitting room, piling the other furniture up against one wall. It was the warmest room, too. 

Charlie and Jenny stayed the night. I gave them a couple of blankets and a few pillows, so that they could be somewhat comfortable in the now close to empty bedroom. Barsad and another man stayed too. I held out a blanket to Barsad, he was standing by the front door. 

He shook his head. “You keep it” he said. 

I went to lie down on the floor in the sitting room. I was afraid that I'd accidentally hurt Bane if I was in the bed with him, and he was taking up most of the space too, lying on his back in the middle of it. 

The floor was hard and uncomfortable, but I wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway. I lay awake, listening to his raspy breaths, relieved by each one, and petrified before the next. I kept the fire going. I got up and looked at him. His clothes were soaked in blood. I had washed my hands, but there was blood down the front of my dress. He had blood on his hands. I touched one of them, glad to feel it was warm. 

Jenny came downstairs a couple of times during the night to check on him. He was still breathing.

He woke up the next day, but he seemed pretty out of it, his gaze unfocused.

“Don't try to speak” Jenny said. He gave him a shot of morphine and he soon drifted back to sleep. 

“You should eat something” Jenny then said to me.

I shook my head. I wasn't hungry. 

“Come, you should put something else on.”

I changed my clothes. None of us had eaten anything. Maybe they were hungry. I fixed some food, feeling as if I should do something, and glad I had something to do. 

It felt utterly strange to have so many people in the house, sitting by the table where usually only Bane and I sat. Even stranger, and it made my stomach twist itself into a knot, was that he was lying there, incapacitated, in the sitting room. 

When he woke up the next time he spoke, despite Jenny having told him not to. Barsad and I was in the room. 

“Wayne's men” he said, his voice hoarse and strained. He was looking at Barsad. 

“I know. It was Phil who warned me. Sorry we didn't get here faster, came as soon as we found out.”

Bane gave a hint of a nod.

“Reach out to the Chinese” he said. “Offer them Wayne's business. Keep Wayne alive.”

Barsad nodded and then he left. Bane looked at me. I tried to smile, but it was difficult. He looked like shit, white as a sheet, and there were dark circles under his eyes. 

“Don't speak any more” I said and gingerly sat down on the edge of the bed. “Jenny said you shouldn't.”

I took his hand. He wrapped his fingers around mine. I felt like crying. Part of it was seeing him like this, and part of it was relief he was alive. I wanted to hold him and kiss him, but we weren't alone in the house and I couldn't risk someone seeing us. 

“I'm gonna wash your hands” I said. “You've got blood all over them.”

I went and fetched the washbowl and pitcher, and some rags, from the bathroom. I washed his hands and arms. Then he took my hand again and I turned my eyes to his face.

“I'm sorry” he said, meeting my gaze. 

It broke my heart that he was apologizing. I shook my head.

“It wasn't your fault. I'm fine. You're gonna be fine.”

He fell asleep again soon after. 

**

Jenny and Charlie stayed in the house with us. Charlie only went home to check on their livestock, and then one of Bane's men was there instead. 

“How come you have that medical equipment?” I asked Jenny.

We were sitting in the kitchen, each with a cup of tea in front of us. Charlie was on the front porch, with a rifle. The backdoor was locked. I wondered if I would ever leave it open again, like I used to. 

A bag of medical equipment, that was what Jenny had grabbed before leaving the house.

“We traded for it” Jenny said. “It cost like half a year's crop. But I knew I'd feel so much better having it, in case something happened to Charlie.”

I nodded.

“He's gonna be all right” Jenny said, looking at me across the table.

I nodded again. Bane was asleep in the next room, but I couldn't say what I was thinking, in case he was awake and heard me. I'd been afraid for me, as well as for him. He probably knew that, though, he was too smart not to. I was still afraid, even though Jenny had said the wounds showed no sign of infection when he changed the bandages.

But I also couldn't express the crippling fear of losing him, not only for the sake of my safety, but because I cared about him. I wasn't sure he knew that. It was all a tangled mess in my head. Did I love him? I didn't know if that word applied. It was too complicated, I couldn't get my head around it. 

I had cut the shirt off him, it was ruined anyway, and washed him as well as I could with a wet cloth. It would have to do, until he could get up. He tried to do that way too soon, though.

I heard him, and ran into the room. He was sitting up on the edge of the bed.

“No! What are you doing?”

He tried to stand up.

“No!” I pushed at his shoulders, afraid to be too rough because of his injuries. 

He pushed me out of the way. In the end, I helped him get up on his feet, because he wouldn't listen. 

I helped him wash and get into clean clothes in the bathroom. He leaned heavily on me after I had finished buttoning his shirt. 

“Go back to bed” I said. 

“No.”

When Barsad showed up a little later Bane was sitting by the kitchen table. He'd eaten some and looked slightly better. Slightly.

He asked Jenny if he could take the bandages off, addressing him directly, even though Charlie was in the room. It was as if all rules had been temporarily thrown out the window, while we got through this crisis. 

“Yes, the wounds will heal better if they get some air” Jenny said. “But don't scratch at the stitches, and wash your hands before you touch your neck or cheek.”

It looked awful and I had to force myself to not look away. They'd cut right across his throat, a long gash, and the stitches holding the wound together were black. It looked Frankenstein-like. It was amazing he was alive, with a wound like that. The cheek wasn't pretty either, but it didn't look quite as menacing as the cut across the front of his neck. 

“It's already knitting nicely” Jenny said, inspecting the wounds. “I'll teach Anna how to keep an eye out for any problems.” 

Then he moved away, perhaps conscious of the strangeness of being right up in Bane's face like that.

Barsad gave Bane an update on things, and then we were all going into town. I didn't want to, I wanted Bane to go lie down again, but he wasn't going to.

In town everything looked the same, but there were a few, small differences. I saw a man I didn't know standing on the porch to Wayne's place. He was Chinese, or at least that was my educated guess given what Bane and Barsad had talked about. He had a shaved head. There were a couple of other guys around too, who also looked Asian. 

A lot of people had gathered on main street, almost as if they knew something was about to happen, or maybe it was just general curiosity, about the new people, or whatever else had happened here while we were up at the house. 

I could almost hear the collective intake of breath when Bane stepped out of the car. Maybe I was imagining it. He did look unusually frightening, though, with the stitches clearly visible across his throat and face. He didn't take any notice of the people staring, he walked up to the man standing on the porch and exchanged a few words with him. 

After a little while someone was hauled through the front door. Wayne. He was beaten bloody, one of his eyes completely swollen shut, and dark red had soaked his clothes. He was dragged to the middle of main street, where he collapsed in the dust. He wasn't unconscious, though, I could see him move.

I stood to the side, next to Jenny and Charlie, and watched, along with everybody else, as Bane walked up to him. 

Bane must have felt like a dead man walking. I remembered how he had leaned on me just a little while earlier, but he didn't show it. 

He grabbed Wayne by his hair and pulled him up to his knees. I realized I was holding my breath. Bane had a knife, I couldn't remember if he'd had it all along, and while he held Wayne upright with one hand, he used the other to push the knife into the side of Wayne's neck. I could see Wayne's eye, the one that wasn't swollen, almost bulge out of its socket. Then Bane forced the knife forward, cutting Wayne's throat wide open. A gush of thick, bubbly blood rushed out, splattering the street, seeping into the dirt. 

It was a horrifying sight, but I felt no pity for Wayne. It was he who had sent those men to our house, in an attempt to take control of the gun trade, I had learned. He was responsible for what they'd done to Bane, and for what they had tried to do to me. He got what he deserved. 

Bane let go of Wayne, who dropped to the ground, then he walked over to the side of the street where we were standing. He handed Barsad the bloody knife, then gestured for me to follow him. Charlie and Jenny came too, and we gave them a ride home. 

When we got back to our house, Bane went straight to bed. I followed and lay down next to him. 

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Tired.”

He moved his hand towards me.

“Come here.”

I moved closer, until I could lean my head against his chest, his arm around my shoulders.

“This doesn't hurt?” I asked. 

“No.”

I wanted to say more, but I couldn't phrase any of the things that was running through my head, and pretty soon he fell asleep. 

**

Bane stayed at home for a few days, recuperating. He was tired, in a weird mood, and I could feel him watching me. I tried to go about my day as usual, I did all the ordinary things, but it didn't feel ordinary.

Reverend Gordon came to visit, having walked all the way from town. He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen for a moment and just looked at Bane, who was sitting at the kitchen table. 

“Thank God you're all right” he said then. 

Bane 'hmm-ed'. 

“I saw your display of power on main street” the Reverend said and sat down by the table. “And I've met the new neighbors.”

I put a cup of tea in front of him.

“Thank you” he said.

“You want one too?” I asked Bane.

He nodded. 

“You think they will be an improvement on Wayne?” the Reverend asked. 

I put a cup in front of Bane, then moved to leave the room, but he caught my hand.

“Why don't you sit down, have some tea too” he said.

I could feel the Reverend watching us, aware he was seeing this small sign of intimacy between us, such as it was. 

“Sure” I said. 

“Do you think you can trust them?” the Reverend said then.

“I've done business with Deshi” Bane said. “He's always stood by his word. Doesn't mean I trust him. I never trusted Wayne, either.”

I sat down at the table, a cup of tea in front of me.

“Well, I guess we'll have to wait and see.”

The Reverend looked at me.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Fine.”

He smiled a little at me. It got quiet. I looked at Bane and he looked back. 

Bane could sit forever without speaking, maybe the Reverend could too, I didn't know, but I found the silence strained. 

“Um... have you gotten any new books?” I asked.

“No. No, I haven't, but you're welcome to borrow any of the ones I've got.”

“Thank you.”

The Reverend stayed a little longer, had something to eat with us, before he headed back.

The next day we headed into town. I began dragging my feet when I realized where we were going, but I followed Bane up the steps to Wayne's place anyway. I guessed it would have to be renamed now. 

It looked pretty much as I remembered it, the bar along one wall, the tables spread throughout the room. There was no sign of any of the whores, just like when I came here that first time. Bane had me wait just outside the open door as he went inside, to meet the man who was coming to greet him. It was the same man I had seen on the porch last time. Deshi.

I realized, to my amazement, that they greeted each other in Chinese. I had heard French, German, Spanish and a few different languages I didn't recognize around town, but most people spoke English, although sometimes with an accent. 

They soon switched to English, though, and went to sit down at one of the tables. They talked for a little while. Then Deshi made a gesture towards me, although he was still looking at Bane.

“That is your wife?”

Bane nodded. 

“You want to ask her to step inside?” Deshi said. “I have a wife too.”

He said something in Chinese over his shoulder. Bane turned to look at me and I walked over to where they were sitting. A woman came through a door in the back of the room. She was pretty, with long black hair and, just like Jenny, she had a slightly feminine look to her features. 

“This is my wife” Deshi said. “Bao. The name means treasure.”

Bao curtseyed. I didn't know what to do. I felt as if I had embarrassingly sparse knowledge about other cultures than my own, especially old-fashioned versions of those cultures. 

“Anna” Bane said, introducing me. 

“Your wife is very beautiful” Deshi said, addressing Bane. “Your treasure, I'm sure, as Bao is mine.”

It all felt very odd. 

“Please, let's have something to drink” Deshi said then. 

Bao went and fetched a tray with four cups on it. It was tea, rose hip. I sat down next to Bane, Bao across the table from me, next to Deshi. She smiled a little at me and I smiled back. 

Bane and Deshi talked. From what I could understand, the Chinese were a smaller community than the sort-of-American-European mix up that mostly dominated the town. But Deshi had a gang, just like Wayne had, before he got too greedy. 

The prison was old, I knew that much, started by Europeans at some point in history, and then it had expanded, agreements had been struck that allowed other countries to exile their unwanted people here too. 

I drank my tea, looked at Bao across the table. She looked back, and then we turned our gazes in other directions, in order not to stare. 

“How well do you know them?” I asked when we were out on the street again.

“Well enough.”

“Have you met his wife before?”

“No.”

We went to visit Alain. He and his apprentice were working in the smithy.

“You're even uglier now than before” Alain said, as a way of greeting Bane.

Bane took this in stride, in fact he didn't seem to react to the insult at all. It wasn't true though. Bane wasn't ugly, he was a pretty handsome guy. He had a few scars from before, I'd felt them under my hands, on his back, and he had a pretty bad one on his side, along his lower ribs. He wasn't ugly now, either. When the stitches were gone he would look fine. And I wasn't about to complain, was I, I only had eight fingers. 

They talked for a bit, then we made other visits. To Phil, who had ratted Wayne out to Barsad, when he found out what they were planning. A few other people. Bane was paying his due, showing his appreciation to people who had stepped up, offering them things they might need, saying thank you without actually saying the words. 

Our last stop were Charlie and Jenny. This time I wasn't panic-stricken and took in a bit more about their house. It was small, a cabin really, but it looked nice. There were herbs in pots in the kitchen window, two arm-chairs with pillows in them in front of the fire, and through a doorway I could see an unmade bed. 

I smiled at Jenny, who smiled back. 

“You had no obligation to do what you did” Bane said. “I want you to know I appreciate it.”

“I'm glad we could be of help” Charlie said. 

Bane nodded a little. “All the same, I owe you.”

Charlie nodded his head at Jenny. “She did most of it” he said. 

Bane looked at Jenny.

“Thank you” he said.

I was astounded. Not that he said thank you, but that he directed it straight at Jenny, sort of with Charlie's unspoken permission to do so, but still. 

Jenny looked a little nervous.

“You're welcome” he said. 

“You did your part too” Bane said then to Charlie. “If ever you need anything, all you gotta do is ask.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

We left after that. When we got back home Bane went to lie down for a bit. The bed was still in the sitting room. 

“Are you tired?” I asked.

“Little bit.”

I joined him on the bed. 

“You want to do something nice for Jenny?” I said. “You could get her textiles. She likes clothes.”

“Hmm. What if I want to do something nice for you?”

“Nothing. Just get well.”

He caressed the side of my face. I put my hand on the crotch of his pants, pressing down a little with the flat of my hand. I could feel his dick swell under my touch. 

“Do you feel up for it?” I asked. “I can take it in my mouth.”

“Mm.”

I pulled up his shirt a bit and leaned down and kissed his stomach. The skin was warm. He had hair from around his belly button and downward and it tickled my mouth. He lay still as I kissed and I moved my hands up his sides. Eventually I worked my way down to the waistband of his pants, and I undid the buttons and took out his by now very hard dick.

I took my time, using only my tongue at first, teasing, before putting my lips around him. I had learned how to do this, knew what he liked, and I put it all to use, going slowly. He was breathing heavily, then he groaned softly, and I looked up, worried he was in pain, he did have stitches across his throat after all, but it wasn't that kind of groan. 

He put his hand on my head, not pushing, but just held it there. I could feel when he was about to come, and when he did it was with another breathy moan. I sat up and he opened his eyes and looked at me. He smiled.

“What an amazing wife I have” he said.

“Yeah, you do.” I smiled back.


End file.
